Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)

A woman returning home falls asleep and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. Through repetitive images and complete mismatching of the objective view of time and space, her dark inner desires play out on-screen.

Directors:

Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid (as Alexander Hamid)

Writer:

Maya Deren

Stars:

Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid

1 win.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Maya Deren	...	The Woman
Alexander Hammid	...	The Man

Storyline

On her way back home, a solitary woman picks up a frail flower, and then, she drops her key--and when she finally enters her home--exhausted, she falls asleep in a deep and comfortable armchair. However, even in her intimate dreams, an intangible and elusive dark presence blemishes her afternoon nap--she tries to catch it; but, in vain. Now, bizarre but perfect doppelgängers of her physical self materialise in the house, catching a glimpse of a record player playing a never-ending silent tune; a telephone, and a sharp bread knife, as the already confined environment becomes more and more a maze-like purgatory. The knife thirsts for blood; the woman hungers for a way out. Can the undivided mind/matter entity escape consciousness?

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Plot Keywords:

flower | knife | stairs | surrealism | experimental film | 

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Genres:

Short | Fantasy | Mystery

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

DVD Edited DVD

Country:

USA

Language:

None

Release Date:

1943 (USA)

Also Known As:

Meshes of the Afternoon

Filming Locations:

Maya Deren's house, North Kings Road, West Hollywood, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$275 (estimated)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

14 min

Sound Mix:

Mono Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This film was selected to the National Film Registry, Libary of Congress, in 1990.

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Goofs

When The Woman tries to open the supposedly locked door for the first time, it gives way a little (too much).

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Alternate Versions

The original print of Meshes was completely silent (w/o music). Teiji Ito's score was added to a sound reprint in the 1950's.

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Connections

Spoofed in Quel Sale Tour (2002)

User Reviews

Sombre surrealist nightmare

'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.