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Meshes of the Afternoon
For her influential short avant-garde film Meshes of the Afternoon, the prominent experimental filmmaker Maya Deren collaborated with her then-husband, Alexander Hammid. The film is silent except for added sound effects, such as the ticking of a clock.
The action centers on a woman, played by Deren herself. She returns home, falls asleep, and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. She repeatedly follows another woman, who is dressed in black, holds a flower, and has a mirror for a face. Each time this mysterious presence disappears around the corner, Deren enters a house.
Through repetitive images and a complete mismatch with the objective view of time and space, the woman’s dark inner desires play out on-screen. The camera follows her from striking angles while the lighting produces sharp, diagonal shadows in this black-and-white film. A knife, a telephone, and a key return time and again as visual motifs and sometimes abruptly merge. Subsequently, a man (played by Hammid) enters this menacing, circular fantasy world.
In 1957, the Japanese composer Teiji Ito, Deren’s second husband, added an ambient, dreamy soundtrack to the film.
Bio Maya Deren
Maya Deren (1917-1961) was one of the most important American avant-garde experimental filmmakers of the 1940s and 1950s. Deren was also a choreographer, poet, and photographer. She was married to Alexander Hammid; together they made Meshes of the Afternoon (1943).
My purpose is to make an experimental motion picture (the physical scope of which is subject to material conditions) in which I will attempt to develop a cinematic art form, originating in the creative potentialities of the movie camera itself, and freed from the influence of other artistic idioms, such as literature, theater, the plastic and pictorial arts.
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- This film was #2 in the “Greatest” Short Films of All Time 2025voted by Hadi Alipanah, Yorgos Angelopoulos, Amarsanaa Battulga, Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer, Didi Cheeka, Oana Ghera, May Ziade, Yun-hua Chen, Ruun Nuur, Tendai Mutambu, Nina Rodríguez, Salome Lamas, Nina de Vroome, David Bakum, Alejo Franzetti, Manuel Mateo, Veton Nurkollari, Juan Barquin, Jessica McGoff, Ivan Ramljak, Paul Landriau, Olaf Held, Ngọc Duy Lê, Jose Cabrera, Libertad Gills, Nuno Rodrigues, Ben Nicholson, Michael Sicinski, Hannes Wesselkämper, Claudio Zilleruelo Arca, Anna Feistel, Bart Versteirt, Aleksandra Ławska, Koyo Yamashita, Peter Tscherkassky, Edith van der Heijde, Patrick Gamble, Per Fikse, Sven Pötting, Eroll Bilibani, Laia Nadal, Wim Vanacker, Koen de Rooij, Naomi Pacifique, Cátia Rodrigues, Ania Wójtowicz, Carlos Velandia, Michiel Philippaerts, Eneos Çarka, Philip Ilson, Gunter Deller, Leonardo Martinelli, Adam Piron, Simone Bardoni