meshes of the afternoon

1. Meshes of the Afternoon
Context, influences, visual elements and style,
meaning and interpretation.

2. Context
• Deren mixed cinema and choreography and played with the
spatial-time possibilities that this medium offers.
• Meshes of the afternoon is a film that offers many
interpretation possibilities depending both on the literacy
level of the viewer and on the film theory being applied or the
cinematographic theory that is focused on.
• Feminism is one of the many factors that is focused on
because the main character is a women and a man only
appears sometimes nearer to the end. Maya would have
experience in the first wave of feminism that occurred in the
19th to the 20th century.

3. Context – feminism
• Feminism is one of the many factors that is focused on because the
main character is a girl and a man only appears sometimes nearer
to the end. Maya would have experience the first part (also
referred to as a wave) of feminism that occurred in the 19th to the
20th century.

4. Influences
• Some people think that the mirror face is influenced by Yeasayer’s video for “ambling alp”
when a mirror-faced figure appears in John Coney’s 1974 Sun Ra vehicle.
• Main themes of the film are:
1. Dream vs reality vs dual reality
2. Closeness of death
3. Intimacy
4. Receptiveness of everyday life
5. Deformation of reality
6. Repression of past personalities
• The main themes may be seen as influences because Maya Deren would have experienced
repetition of everyday life and maybe others on the list like closeness of death.

5. Visual elements and Style
• Meshes of the Afternoon is shot as a silent film, there is no
dialogue, communication between characters or any sort of
diegetic sound. However, we do hear non-diegetic sound that the
characters do not hear. A record player is played silently in the
film. Whilst the disc revolves and the needle is engaged in the
groove, there is no indication of the sound that it makes. When
Deren takes one of her many short journeys along the path or up
stairs, the sound of her steps is not heard.

6. Visual elements and Style
• Rhythm is a defining element in all of Deren’s films, it arises from
the play of repetition seen in her films and variation which is
essential to her experiments within narrative. The rhythmic
drumbeat and the repeated sounds highlight her repeated
movement throughout the film. The soundtrack allows Deren’s to
have temporal and spatial experimentation in the short film.

7. Meaning and Interpretation
• In the early 1970s, J. Hoberman claimed that Meshes of
the Afternoon was "less related to European surrealism"
and more related to "Hollywood wartime film noir".
• Deren explained that Meshes "is concerned with the
interior experiences of an individual. It does not record an
event which could be witnessed by other persons. Rather,
it reproduces the way in which the subconscious of an
individual will develop, interpret and elaborate an
apparently simple and casual incident into a critical
emotional experience."