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Images and themes in Meshes
of the Afternoon!

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Jaime Costas Nicolás
Since the beginning of the avant-garde movements, many artists have found in
cinema a new way of artistic expression. They were astonished with the
possibilities that cinema ofered in order to play with time and space, or as Breton
said “it is in cinema where the only modern mystery is celebrated”1. It is the
modernity that Breton names, the one that will fascinate the surrealist artists,
among which we find Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, René Clair or Luis Buñuel. Moreover,
through this medium, they could ofer more easily the base of the surrealist
image theory, the analogy between two elements completely opposed.
!
While in Europe the surrealist cinema was developed in the 20s, in the United
States it will not arrive until the 40s, mostly thanks to the shooting of Maya
Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon. This film is going to produce a late initiation of
the surrealist cinematography in the United States and it will make Maya Deren
the mother of the North American independent cinema.
!
This essay will try to make an analysis of the complex images and ideas behind
the cinematographic debut of Maya Deren, but before, it is necessary to know the
main characteristics of Deren’s art, her theories about cinema and the context in
which Meshes of the Afternoon is going to be filmed:
!
-Despite of being part of the surrealism, there are big diferences between the
Maya Deren’s cinema and the cinema form the “classic” surrealist authors. Deren
does not believe in the automatic writing nor chance as creation formulas, she
will declare to be a classic and methodological artist. The second diference
between Maya and the surrealists is the treatment of the dream state. While
surrealist artists pervert reality thanks to the introduction of new forms and the
transformation of objects and persons, Maya will recreate her fantasy with
bizarre relations between objects and between the objects and their context, but
never transforming them. However, she shares some elements with surrealist
and dadaist artists: the representation of the dreams and the subconscious, and
the interest for psychology. There is even an unfinished film made by Maya
Deren together with Marcel Duchamp.
!
-Maya Deren understands cinema as a total art. She is going to use techniques
from photography, dance or poetry. In fact, she started her artistic career as a
poet: “Before I was a filmmaker, I was a very poor poet, because I thought in

1 Kyrou, Ado. “Le Surréalisme au Cinéma”. Paris. Le Terrain Vague, 1963. Page 22.
 terms of images; what existed as essentially a visual experience in my mind,
poetry was an efort to put it into verbal terms. When I got a camera, it was like
coming home. It was like doing what I always wanted to do.”2 She is going to use
her poetic narrativity (poetry cinema) and her passion for the dance to create a
temporal and spatial art, and she will produce new experiences and space-time
relations. She considers herself an amateur director, meaning she does it for love
to the art, instead that for money or necessity.
!
-Finally, we need to talk about the historic context in which Deren had made her
films. During the 40s, United States was at war against Europe and Japan. This
situation will make the american society completely alienated and this state will
be reflected in Deren’s work. Moreover, the cinema at that time was mainly made
by men and also it had also a tremendously fixed structure to which Maya was
opposed. There, she is going to introduce in her cinema feminist and
antiHollywood elements.
!
These characteristics are going to be present in the debut film of Maya, Meshes of
the Afternoon, and it is thanks to them that it will become in one of the most
important oeuvres of the american surrealism, “Deren is credited with making the
first narrative film in the history of the American avant-garde.”3
!
Meshes of the Afternoon was filmed in Los Angeles in 1943. The film is a
collaboration between Maya Deren and her first husband Alexander Hammid, a
Czechoslovakian photographer and director. It is believed that Hammid was in
charge of the camerawork and the cinematography while Maya worked in the
narrativity of the story. However, Tino Hammid, son of Alexander, talks about a
total collaboration between the two parts, “There is not a clear distinction
between the themes in Meshes and its shooting and editing. My father worked
almost his entire career without film scripts (...) (he) treated the creative process
in a very open and collaborative manner.”4 It has no script nor sound. The non-
diegetic music was added a posteriori by Maya’s third husband, Teiji Ito.

2 Deren, Maya. “Essential Deren: Complete Film Writings” McPherson, 2005.

3 Geller, Theresa. “The Personal Cinema of Maya Deren: Meshes of the Afternoon and Its Critical Reception
in the History of the Avant-Garde”. University of Hawaii Press. Biography, Volume 29, Number 1, Winter
2006, pp. 140-158 (Article). Page 2.

4 Hammid, Tino. (2012, Décembre 10). Email interview.

Meshes of the Afternoon is going to propose the inner world and the dreams of a
woman through the juxtaposition of objects, concepts and opposed situations:
dream-world and reality, life and death, women and men, the house and the sea,
and other mechanisms more subtle that we will later see. The experimental film
director Érik Bullot has written about its structure, “Meshes brings the narrative
causality through a logic of non-contradiction”5. It is a poetic film, it will get its
meaning through its images.
!
Now, I would like to state that the next interpretations regarding the film are
personal insights, helped, of course, by the texts written by Maya Deren and other
scholars included at the bibliography. My personal point of view about the film is
the next: the female protagonist lives under her husband’s submission. It is this
submission that will be reflected in her dreams as suicidal feeling but, at the same
time, she will have doubts due to her sexual desires.
!
We start our analysis of Meshes of the Afternoon by its credits. In them, rather
Deren or Hammid writes “Hollywood” when it is obvious that this film it has not
been shot in these cinematographic studios. Deren, but mainly Hammid, attack
with this title sequence conventional cinema. In their film, they are going to
question each of the conventions of classic Hollywood films: a chronological
timeline, continuity editing and romance as the main theme. The reason for this
critic is very simple: when Hammid arrived to the United States, he could not work
in the cinematographic industry since he was not part of the american union.6
Therefore, they are going to play with space and time, reject the patriarchy and
representing it as a threat, and they will use experimental cinematographic
techniques to destroy continuity.
!
We are going to split the film in six parts:
!
1. Reality
!

5 Bullot, Érik. “Éloge du camouflage”. Les Cahiers dy Mnam 112/113 été/automne 2010. Page 186.

6 “My father had recently come from Czechoslovakia to Hollywood as a well known and respected European
filmmaker. When he tried to get work he hit a brick wall because he was not a part of the unionized industry.
They wouldn't even let him pick up a camera, so to speak.” Hammid, Tino. (2012, Décembre 10). Email
interview.
The narration starts in the real world. Reality is going to be the base for the
dream-world of the female protagonist
or how Maya herself describes it “This
film is concerned with the interior of an
individual. It does not record an event
which could be witnessed by other
persons. Rather, it reproduces the way
which the subconscious of an individual
will develop, interpret, and elaborate an
apparently simple and casual incident
into a critical emotional experience”7.
The first image is a mannequin’s arm Life and death
leaving a paper flower on the road.
Here, it is necessary to talk about three diferent features. First, the two objects
represent a contradiction itself. Both represent something alive but are completely
inert. Regarding their symbolism, the arm makes us think about women’s
objectivization who are regarded as man’s toy, not only in society, but also, in
cinema at that time. Moreover, the flower is the feminine symbol more
recognizable in poetry and, in fact, we are going to associate it with the woman’s
silhouette through the film. We have to also highlight the use of a recurrent film
technique in Meshes of the Afternoon, the magic edition inherited from George
Méliès at the beginning of film history, through which Deren makes disappear or
move objects, in this case the arm, in order
to disturb reality.
!
The woman is a shadow, we do not see her
in this sequence of the film, only fragmented
parts. This technique foreshadow, as we will
see, the end of the story. Later, she takes
the flower and both seems to move in a
similar way, which produces a visual and
Fragmentation
symbolist match between these two
elements. She sees a man at the end of the road (maybe her
husband), she grabs the key to open the door but it falls through the stairs. The
key seem to escape as it was alive. If we look for the meaning of the key in the

7 Film Culture. 39. Winter, 1965. Page 1.

psychoanalytic theory, in which surrealist images are based, there are two
possibilities, a liberation or repression factor depending if the key is given or
taken aways, and also as a symbol of couples, marriage and the domestic life.
Therefore, the key fleeing could represent the female repression at home or her
submission in the marriage life. It is also important to state that objects are going
to be the protagonists of the film together with the woman. This idea makes us
think again in women thought as objects.
!
She opens the door and we see the
objects that we have just talked about, a
knife, that represents masculinity due to
its phallic form and it is opposed to the
flower, the record-player which a a
reference to the circular structure of the
film and the dreams itself and, finally, the
telephone of the hook that symbolizes a
link between the two states, reality and
dream-world. She goes up the stairs. She
The eyes of the surrealism
sits, with the flower on her lap and she
touches her body sensually. Now, we see a extreme close-up of her eye which
reminds us to other pieces of art from the surrealist movement like the
photographies by Man Ray or the bloody scene in Un Chien Andalou. The eye is
the window and entry into the inner world of the protagonist as we see in the
transition reality-dream when the camera moves backwards through a tunnel
forming the shape of an eye on the screen.
!
2. The first cycle of the dream
!
In the dream, the elements presented in reality are going to become important. In
the reality part, the woman sees a man on the road. In the dream, there is a black
dressed figure with a mirror as face in the road, who is going to escape from her
at all time. The woman is never going to be reflected on its mirror-face, in face,
she is only going to be reflected on surface that are going to disturb her image
(the knife and the window). This emphasize the problems we have talked about,
the lost of the female identity in the marriage due to the masculine oppression.
Nevertheless, the figure represents also the death itself and its presence in the
dreams indicates the desire of dying. Moreover, it carries the flower establishing a
 connection between the figure and the
woman. In this case, we can also
interpret the lack of a sharp reflection
as her doubts to kill herself since the
face of the death can be her own. It is
also in the dream, that we see for the
first time the complete face and body
of the woman which establishes the
dream-world as a liberating place,
Lost of identity
opposed to reality.
!
Inside the house, we find the knife on the stairs, threatening. She tries to go to
the first floor but stairs now seem endless. We need to think about the stairs as
the path to the bedroom, the place where the woman is subdue to the man and so
the never ending stairs reflects how she may feel when she walks them. In the
room, the telephone is now on the bed “sleeping”, as we have said it is a symbol
for the dream state. This way of presenting the objects out of the normal context
personifies them, exactly the opposite of what happens to woman through the
film. Later, she sees her distorted reflection
on the knife as we already advanced before,
denoting a lack of identity. Afraid by this
idea, she hangs up the telephone trying to
escape from the dream. Now, due to her
fear, the stairs look like a clif in which she
seems to fall in and Hammid’s movements
with the camera achieve to transmit that
same feeling to the viewer. Then, she
approaches the window and she sees
Penetration
another version of herself (three with the
one sleeping on the armchair). This image of having several alter ego is related
again with her identity issues, the female protagonist is alienated from herself.
Finally, before moving on to the third version, she picks up the key from her
mouth. From my point of view, on one side, it is a liberating movement, her
provocative face confirms it. She gets rid of the institution of marriage and she
passes it her new version who enters the house. On the other side, this is the
great contradiction within the woman, she wants to die but her sexual desires
prevent her from doing it. It is when she is “penetrated” (the image of the key in
her mouth) that she stops her actions and passes the baton to the next version of
herself. At the same time, the key also means
the beginning or aperture of the new cycle
within the dream.
!
3. The second cycle of the dream
!
This cycle is a repetition of the topics already
seen. The woman follows the dark figure who
has in its hands the woman’s fate, the flower.
Death in the room
In this second cycle, death seems to be closer
to the woman since the figure is now inside the house and inside the bedroom.
Now, the stairs are harder to walk on because the death is closer and her doubts,
bigger. Moreover, if we pay attention to how the woman moves through the stairs,
from one side to the other, she reminds us of the key falling at the beginning of
the film, another comparison between the woman and the objects. The death
leaves the flower on the bed, in the same place the knife was before. It is on the
bed where many of the themes and symbols of the film converge. The bed is
where the knife and the flower are, meaning, where masculinity and femininity
meet and, at the same time, where the woman is dominated by the man as we will
see at the end of the dream. The bed is an object of oppression for her but also of
her sexuality and desires. Therefore, it is the main symbol for her role in the
patriarchal society of that time.
!
The next sequence is very revealing. She sees the death disappear and next she
transforms in a kind of inanimate object, like a statue, that is what is left of her if
she does not embrace death. She stares at the knife, doubtful. It is the masculine
presence which makes her an “object”.
!
Before beginning the third repetition, we have again the scene where she takes
the key from her mouth but, this time, the key becomes the knife, the phallus.
Her sexual doubts are still present and now, more clearly represented.
!
4. The third cycle of the dream
!
This first scene is mainly a summary of the three cycles of the dream. All the
woman’s versions are reunited around the table. They leave the key/knife on the
 table and they seem to decide their destiny.
The first two versions take the key but their
signs of sexuality or their sexual desires, which
we have been describing during the film,
prevents them from taking action. As historian
Adams Sitney suggests “Objects, vision, and
the erotic are important to the film’s
construction of a repressed and resistant
female sexuality and subjectivity (...) provide The two first versions waiting for the third one

insight into the film’s psyco-sexual tensions”8

It is the third one who, without any trace of sexuality, finally takes the key which
transforms immediately into the knife. Her hand is black, she seems to have fused
with the black figure, her deadly desire.
!
Then, the protagonist take the knife and we see she is wearing a pair of glasses
that does not let her see, she has made a decision. She gets up and we have a
traveling scene that Deren described as, “What I meant when I planned that four
stride sequence was that you have to come a long way – from the very beginning
of time – to kill yourself, like the first life emerging from the primeval waters.
Those four strides, in my intention, span all time.”9 This last murderous version
gets close to her sleeping self but she wakes up, opens her eyes, and it is her
husband who is approaching her. The husband is clearly identified as a threat.
!
5.The fake reality
!
I name this part “fake reality” because the
audience is supposed to think that we are back
to reality, but, as we will see, we are still inside
her subconscious. We see the husband has the
flower in his hand, he is dominating. He takes
her to the bedroom, while she checks that all
the objects are back to their normal places,
Finally, the reflection on the mirror
they are not alive anymore. The man leaves the
flower on the bed, as an invitation, like the death in the dream. The strongest

8 Sitney, P. Adams. “Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, 1943-200”. Oxford University Press, October
3, 2002.
9 Deren, Maya. “Letter of April 19, 1955”. Film Culture. 39. Winter, 1965. Page 30
image that the man is who troubles the woman
is on his reflection on the mirror. We have said
that the absence of reflection meant an absence
or deformation on the female identity. Now, we
see that the place where her identity should
reside is occupied by the husband and so, we
can deduce that it is his presence that disturbs
the woman. She lays on the bed and the man
Freedom
starts to touch her body sexually. The masculine
desires are superposed to the feminine’s when the flower transforms into the
knife. We have again a close-up of her eyes maybe pointing out the end of the
dream. Finally, she breaks the mirror, his face, and the influence of the husband
disappears. The woman is liberated. The house, the woman’s prison, is opened to
the sea, a symbol of limitlessness and infinity, without walls. Another possible
meaning, bringing back the idea of the attack against Hollywood cinema, is the
breaking of the frame as the breaking of conventional cinema against Deren and
Hammid’s more experimental films. This image could appear as the end of the
movie but, as in Un Chien Andalou, Meshes of the Afternoon ofers a double
ending, a mechanism to play and destabilize the viewer.
!
6. Return to reality
!
The man enters the house and we find out what she has done to liberate herself,
she died. She is cut with mirror pieces which resembles to the fragmentation of
the body we witnessed at the beginning of the film. We see how her imagination,
her inner world, achieved to conquer reality: she is covered with seaweeds and
sand, her will was too strong to be repressed.
!
To sum up, Meshes of the Afternoon is about a woman oppressed and objectified
to a point she can identify herself anymore. She wishes her death but her sexual
passions make her doubt. However, at the end, her mortal idea prevails and she
commits suicide.
!
The next year (1944), Maya Deren shoots At Land, a film that many critics named
Meshes of the Afternoon’s sequence. The raisons are that they share many
themes and also images. For example, the film starts with a woman carried by the
sea waves, an image that directly recalls to the same sea of freedom in Meshes.
!
After these two films, Deren’s filmography was focused in other aspects. She shot
Ritual in Transfigured Time and Meditation on Violence where she mixed cinema
and choreography and played with the spatial-time possibilities that this mean
ofers. However, Maya Deren finished her career with a documentary about the
Haitian culture Divine Horesemen: The Living Gods of Haity, totally diferent from
her debut’s style.
!
In conclusion, Meshes of the Afternoon is a film that ofers many interpretation
possibilities depending on which literary or cinematographic theory we focus on.
If we focus, for example, on feminism, Meshes tells the story of a female subdued
to the patriarchal society, and if we focus in film history, it is a film that tries to
break with all the Hollywood conventions. Tino Hammid said that his father told
him that the films had not any particular meaning but only interesting
expressions. He also stated that he thinks that they are many personal and
aesthetic reasons that Maya and Alexander wanted to express but, against what
many believe, they are not as premeditated as we think.10 We can say about this
work the same that Jean Cocteau said about his film La Sang d’un Poète, “if each
of you find your own personal meaning in this film, then I will have achieved my
ambition.”11
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10 “I finally asked my father what all the imagery in Meshes meant. He answered that it had no particular
meaning but rather it just was some interesting expressions created through film. I am one who believes that
almost nothing we do is devoid of meaning. I'm sure there are plenty of personal and esthetic reasons my
father and Maya had that they expressed in the film. I just don't think they were nearly as conscious,
organized, or premeditated as some believe today.” Hammid, Tino. (2012, Décembre 10). Email interview.
11 Cocteau, Jean. “Two Screenplays” Baltimore: Pelican Books, 1969.
Bibliographie
!
Béhar, Henri et Michel Carassou. “Le Surréalisme”. LGF, LDP Biblio
Essais. May, 1992.
!
Bullot, Érik. “Éloge du camouflage”. Les Cahiers dy Mnam 112/113 été/
automne 2010.

Cocteau, Jean. “Two Screenplays” Baltimore: Pelican Books, 1969.

Deren, Maya. “Essential Deren: Complete Film Writings” McPherson, 2005.

Deren, Maya. “Letter of April 19, 1955”. Film Culture. 39. Winter, 1965

Deren, Maya. "Program Notes." Film Culture. 39. Winter, 1965.

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Dor, Simon. “La forme créatrice du temps comme expression chez Maya
Deren”. Université de Montreal. Décembre 15, 2006.
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Durozi, Gerard et Bernanrd Lecherbonner. “Lu Surréalisme: théories,
thèmes, techniques.” Larousse, 1972.
!
Geller, Theresa. “The Personal Cinema of Maya Deren: Meshes of the
Afternoon and Its Critical Reception in the History of the Avant-Garde”.
University of Hawaii Press. Biography, Volume 29, Number 1, Winter 2006,
pages 140-158. Article.

Haslem, Wendy. “Maya Deren, The High Priestess of Experimental Cinema”.

Senses of Cinema. December 12, 2002. http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/
great-directors/deren-2/

Kyrou, Ado. “Le Surréalisme au Cinéma”. Paris. Le Terrain Vague, 1963.

Hammid, Tino. (2012, Décembre 10). Email interview.

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Pagán, Alberte. “Introducción aos clásicos do cinema experimental
1945-1990”. CGAI/CGAC, Xunta de Galicia, 1999.
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Sitney, P. Adams. “Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, 1943-200”.
Oxford University Press, October 3, 2002.