Meshes of the Afternoon

'Meshes of the Afternoon' is the first and best-known film of experimental film-maker Maya Deren, whose surrealist tinged movies explore time, space, self, and society and have had a lasting influence on American cinema. 'Meshes…' begins with a hand reaching down, as if from Heaven, leaving a flower on a pathway which a woman (Deren) picks up on her way to her house. When she arrives she ascends some stairs, gets her key out, unlocks the door and enters the house. Already an ominous absence is present, and a subsequent tour of the house shows us a bread-knife, a telephone off the hook, and up another flight of stairs we see an empty bed. After the woman falls asleep, these domestic objects' double life as Freudian symbols is revealed and charged with increasing potency with each repetition of the cyclical narrative until the films catastrophic denouement.

In using Freudian symbology and a cyclical narrative, 'Meshes…' certainly has a dream logic which is reminiscent of surrealist films likes Cocteau's 'Blood of a Poet' as well as Dali and Bunuel's 'Un Chien Andalou'. However, Deren actively rejected the "Surrealist" tag and the difference between 'Meshes' and these seminal surrealist works is marked. Firstly, despite the repeating narrative, objects suddenly transforming into something else, and a lead character that splinters into four, the dramatic structure of 'Meshes…' is quite tight and even though the viewer is challenged in regard to interpretation it struck me as quite straightforward compared to some of her later films. Secondly, the dreamscape of 'Meshes…' is not a celebratory realm liberated from reason, but rather a more claustrophobic and sombre world inhabited by a Grim-Reaper like image with a mirrored face, and the splintered identities of the protagonist who at one point congregate around the kitchen table.

Since it was made, the film has had an immense impact both cinematically (in inspiring a new generation of film-makers to pick up the camera) and culturally given that the most favoured interpretation is that it is a feminist commentary on gender identity and sexual politics in an era when the role of women was changing dramatically. One might think that, in an era when David Lynch is mainstream and woman are arguably liberated, 'Meshes…' would feel dated. However, this is not the case, and remains fresh and engaging to a modern viewer in addition to its (deserved) status as a fascinating and influential piece of early experimental film.

The networks of a mind, who really knows when it reclined, started to consume and dine, before untangling what's been; a head of conjuring confusion, a state of light refract diffusion, with a knife to cut illusion, and a key to lock fate in; as it gazes into cycles, that deceive the daylight vitals, and revisits past disciples, replicas queue to begin; like a self-devouring snake, you can't be sure who is awake, if they want to pull the brake, and find a way to stop the spin.

Those moments of drift, that consume and confuse, as the world wraps around, and the visions all infuse, take you to abstract illusions, to unsettled taut contusions, are they dreams or just intrusions, that play out throughout a snooze.

While the opening sequence of a woman following a faceless figure with a flower is persistently repeated, images of key and knife intensify their vividness, and then dream and reality permeate into each other's realms. Maya Deren's first and probably best film, Meshes of the Afternoon, is an amalgam of traditional narrative and European-imported surrealism. It is also one of many triumphs in the film history that fearlessness and youthfulness conquer the lack of expenses and experiences.

Laden with symbolic imagery, this short film focuses on the struggle of a woman to find her identity independent of men, emotional baggage and societal expectations. Constantly chased by a doppelganger, Maya is confronted with the many aspects of herself at the dinner table. One of her personalities must commit murder to free her. Is she saved from the flower of womanhood or die without expectations?

I suggest watching the movie a few times through to catch all of the imagery and keeping Freud in mind when distilling the symbolism. This film is very interesting and beautiful independent of theme. Definitely worth a look!

Its just so unfortunate to not have 'Maya Daren' with us today. Her exemplary direction with perfect length of her movies makes her a legend in short film category.

Meshes of the Afternoon has everything that no one has ever seen before, in terms of abstraction, philosophy, movie making.. everything is just so beautiful. Her movies cannot be categorized into any available genres, cos' no on e really makes movie of her sort.

A girl entangled into a recursive event which by the directorial pattern looks like a figment of her own imagination. It seems like she is waiting for her lover or something like that and then she finds her replicas all around her haunting her and finally killing her. It also seems that Maya's other short film 'At Land' is a sequel to 'Meshes of the Afternoon' for she keeps alive the same passion and abstraction and romance in 'At Land'.

All in all, its one of the best attempts I have seen. If you believe in movies you cannot miss it.