Meshes of the Afternoon

Meshes of the Afternoon

16mm, black and white, sound, 14 min
In 2015 the BBC named the film the 40th greatest American movie ever made.
Rental formats: 16mm, Digital file

Stills

About

In 2015 the BBC named the film the 40th greatest American movie ever made.

A large flower, the silhouette of a figure briskly walking away, a house key, a bread knife, a telephone receiver resting off the hook, and a spinning phonographic turntable define the shifting functional elements in Meshes of the Afternoon from which the film's evolving, malleable construct - the fragile and tenuously interconnected mesh of actual and perceived reality - is intriguingly (and ingenuously) mapped.

A woman (Maya Deren) walking along the sidewalk near her home catches a momentary glimpse of a figure turning the corner, unlatches the front door and, after a cursory inspection of the empty household, proceeds upstairs to rest on an armchair situated by a front-view window.

From this deceptively simple introductory premise, Maya Deren modulates the mise-en-scene of seemingly mundane objects to create overlapping, yet non-intersecting planes of existential reality, using permutations of recurring images - mirrored surfaces (the apparition's face, polished metal spheres, a hand mirror), glass, duality and doppelgangers - to represent variably interlocking narrative fragments of observation, inference, deduction, and memory.

Unfolding with the narrative discontinuity characteristic of nouvelle roman literature (creating an idiosyncratically dissociative filmic language that also characterizes Alain Resnais' subsequent feature films, particularly Last Year at Marienbad and Je t'aime, je t'aime), the film posits a series of subtle structural, temporal, and logical mutations, creating a sublimely recursive, mind-bending meditation on the interaction between experience and memory, domestic banality and violence, imagination and causation.

Programs

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    "Home" Movies

    A program of avant-garde shorts exploring homes and domestic spaces

    Join us on Saturday, September 24th, 2022, at 6pm in the FMC Screening Room for "HOME" MOVIES: A program of avant-garde shorts exploring homes and domestic spaces. Curated by Matt McKinzie.

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    Mirrored Identities: The Self as Multiple

    A program of films examining the mutability of human identity through doubling, fracture, and dissolution

    Join us at the FMC Screening Room (475 Park Avenue South, 6th Floor) on Saturday, May 13th, 2023, at 7pm, for a fascinating program of films examining the mutability of human identity through doubling, fracture, and dissolution, curated by Julia Curl!

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    The Film-Makers' Cooperative x The Brooklyn Rail: An Ode to Maya Deren

    Five Maya Deren films

    This Labor Day, we're thrilled to collaborate with our friends at The Brooklyn Rail for an exciting Maya Deren screening series!

Films

  • Other films by this artist in our catalogue

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    The Witch's Cradle
    Experimental

    The Witch's Cradle
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, silent, 12 min
    Rental formats: 16mm, Digital file
    • Spiritual / Mystical
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    At Land
    Experimental

    At Land
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, silent, 14 min
    Rental formats: 16mm, Digital file
    • Psychology / Mental Health
    • Philosophical
    • Arts / Artists
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    A Study In Choreography For Camera

    A Study In Choreography For Camera
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, sound, 3 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Body
    • Dance
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    Ritual In Transfigured Time
    Experimental

    Ritual In Transfigured Time
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, sound, 15 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Philosophical
    • Dance
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    Meditation On Violence
    Experimental

    Meditation On Violence
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, sound, 13 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Philosophical
    • Dance
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    Dance Films
    Experimental

    Dance Films
    Maya Deren

    black and white, silent and sound, 47 min
    Rental format: DVD PAL
    • Body
    • Dance
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    The Very Eye of Night
    Experimental

    The Very Eye of Night
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, sound, 15 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Dance
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    Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
    Documentary
    Experimental

    Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, sound, 54 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Ethnographic
    • Spiritual / Mystical
    • Dance