Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) directed by Maya Deren and Aexander Hammid is a short black and white silent experimental film which forged a new American avant-garde cinema. The film’s narrative is circular, repeating several motifs. Through creative editing, distinct camera angles and the use of slow motion the surrealist film depicts a world in which it becomes increasingly difficult to catch reality. The film focuses on the struggle of a woman coming to terms with her identity independent of men, emotional baggage and social expectations. Constantly chased by doubles, she is confronted with these many aspects of her life at a table. To set herself free she must commit murder. The films leaves us with the unanswered question is she saved from the flower of womanhood or die without expectations.
From the beginning we get a sense that the film is about an interior reality of fantasies, fear and unarticulated feelings. The film opens with a flower being placed in the middle of a footpath. The flower is then picked up by a women. This women enters a house where she falls asleep on a chair. Images of her sleeping eyes alternate with a window showing the outside world we see a key and a knife, which are symbolic objects in their film. A mysterious black cloaked figure turns, revealing a mirror for their face, this adds ambiguity to the character and suggests this figure could be a double character or a figure of death. A man then enters the house where the phone is off the hook and a mirror breaks into smithereens on the bed. This viewer begins to ask the question are these images external or imagined? Could the broken mirror symbolise violence or insight? The woman sits at a table along with two other figures of herself.
The film shows the dream world of the woman. This evokes symbolic associations and invites narrative speculations. . Following laws of imagination instead of reality. It is a visionary exploration of the woman’s consciousness, showing symbols seen in her unconscious state. These don’t link so in the end the puzzle never comes together, leaving the viewer to make the story up in their own mind. In the film images accumulate, repeat and contrast in associative chains that create internal patterns. Take the key for example. It is dropped, appears in the woman’s hand and disappears. Although no interpretation is definitive it suggests it. This could also suggest to the viewer, their search for the key to unlock the film’s meaning. You could also look at the knife. The knife being connected to the domestic by cutting bread or even domestic violence when the woman appears to be dead in the bed or self-inflicted violence when she approaches her double with it. As well as the window. The window functions as a metaphor for the film frame, representing the border between inside and out. When the woman looks out the window it I an exploration of the women’s subjectivity, it could show her desire, fear and struggle to escape domestic confinement. As the woman approaches her sleeping double with a dagger each step she takes is placed in a space that moves from outside to inside. One on the ocean, the earth, the grass, the pavement, all outside and a rug inside. Inside and outside are explored to show the woman’s association with the house. This could also be a hint to gothic melodramas about domestic threatening
The film aims to transform reality through the power of the imagination. It also subtly shows a critical perspective on conventional film traditions, being made within miles of film studios in Hollywood. The film leaves the industrial tradition behind pursuing film as an art. I really enjoyed this film as it kept me questioning the happenings. I re watched this several times in order to understand it. The more I watched it, the more enjoyable the film became, realising new aspects of the storyline, beginning to understand the symbolism for each object. This is a brilliant example of what an experimental film should be.