Meshes of the Afternoon
There are spoilers in this review/analysis. I'm not sure that's a fair statement given the nature of the movie, but I do give away the ending.
This is an experimental movie by Maya Deren and her then-husband Alexander Hammid. It was made in 1943 and has no recognizable plot or symbols. Much of the action is repeated with some changes. Generally, a woman goes into a home, looks around the rooms, and seems to commit suicide. It's hard to tell, though. We see her repeatedly enter the home, but there are differences each time. She appears to chase a figure that is cloaked in black and has a mirror for a face, but she fails to catch the figure and goes into the home instead. The woman repeats certain actions with a key, but the actions are varied. There are views of a knife, first in a loaf of bread, then on a bed. A long-stemmed flower (which seems to be fake) is placed into various scenes, once by a manikin arm, once by the figure cloaked in black, once by a man. We see the woman fall asleep in a chair, but sometimes her eyes open and she sees the figure in black, sometimes her eyes close. She may or may not attack the man; she may or may not kill herself. All in all, we may guess that she's dreaming the repetitive scenes but there's no clear demarcation between what's real and what's a dream, and there's no clear explanation of what any of it means.
What does the movie mean? We don't know. I think it's clear that Deren and Hammid vested the movie with themselves, that the film is an autobiographical self-portrait, but I think they've purposefully used symbols that are not clear. This is an interesting approach to art, because I think it reflects that we can never fully know another person, and perhaps we can never fully know ourselves. So by purposely refusing to use recognizable symbols, the artists here have hidden themselves from us, leaving us room to explore the work with our own fund of experience.
My take on the figure in the black cloak is that it represents death. With a mirror for a face, when you look into the face of death, you see your death. The man who puts the flower onto the bed is less obvious. He goes upstairs as we've seen death do, so the repetition may tie them together: the man represents death, but not necessarily physical death. The man awakens the woman, and she has the knife in the bed with her, placed there by death.
Other scenes deal with a key. There's a key necessary to gain access to the home, but the key is in other scenes as well. There is a series where the woman is seen sitting at a table; two other versions of her come in, so we see three versions of the woman at the table. Each version picks up the key, shows it in her palm, then the key reappears on the table for another version of the woman to pick up and display. However, the third time the scene is played, the version picking up the key has a palm painted black, and the key becomes the knife. Is the key the knife or is the knife the key? I can't tell.
Ultimately, we come to the scene where the man comes home and instead of heading upstairs to where the wife is sleeping he finds her in a chair with blood shown on her throat, which appears to have been cut. Is the man death? Her death? Is her relationship with the man literal death or figurative death?
The man is portrayed by Hammid, and the woman is played by Deren. Is the movie a reflection of their marriage? Of all marriages between men and women (at least in 1943)? Does the woman give up her life for the man? That will be my interpretation. That the home represents the place where the woman dies, figuratively speaking. That the man represents the death of that woman as an individual. The key to the home represents the knife with which she ends her life -- the key to the home is the instrument of her death as an individual. There's an old saying that through marriage a man and a woman become one, and that one is the man.
This is an interpretation which is personal, and I think "Meshes of the Afternoon" not only invites personal interpretation but requires it. The viewer must bring his or her own fund of experience to the viewing and must use that experience to fund the ambiguities purposefully put into the film. "Meshes of the Afternoon" ensnares us into providing our own meaning if we are to find any meaning at all. Others will surely disagree with my interpretation because they bring a different fund to the film. I'm not sure Deren and Hammid would have a problem with that. And neither do I.
There are spoilers in this review/analysis. I'm not sure that's a fair statement given the nature of the movie, but I do give away the ending.
This is an experimental movie by Maya Deren and her then-husband Alexander Hammid. It was made in 1943 and has no recognizable plot or symbols. Much of the action is repeated with some changes. Generally, a woman goes into a home, looks around the rooms, and seems to commit suicide. It's hard to tell, though. We see her repeatedly enter the home, but there are differences each time. She appears to chase a figure that is cloaked in black and has a mirror for a face, but she fails to catch the figure and goes into the home instead. The woman repeats certain actions with a key, but the actions are varied. There are views of a knife, first in a loaf of bread, then on a bed. A long-stemmed flower (which seems to be fake) is placed into various scenes, once by a manikin arm, once by the figure cloaked in black, once by a man. We see the woman fall asleep in a chair, but sometimes her eyes open and she sees the figure in black, sometimes her eyes close. She may or may not attack the man; she may or may not kill herself. All in all, we may guess that she's dreaming the repetitive scenes but there's no clear demarcation between what's real and what's a dream, and there's no clear explanation of what any of it means.
What does the movie mean? We don't know. I think it's clear that Deren and Hammid vested the movie with themselves, that the film is an autobiographical self-portrait, but I think they've purposefully used symbols that are not clear. This is an interesting approach to art, because I think it reflects that we can never fully know another person, and perhaps we can never fully know ourselves. So by purposely refusing to use recognizable symbols, the artists here have hidden themselves from us, leaving us room to explore the work with our own fund of experience.
My take on the figure in the black cloak is that it represents death. With a mirror for a face, when you look into the face of death, you see your death. The man who puts the flower onto the bed is less obvious. He goes upstairs as we've seen death do, so the repetition may tie them together: the man represents death, but not necessarily physical death. The man awakens the woman, and she has the knife in the bed with her, placed there by death.
Other scenes deal with a key. There's a key necessary to gain access to the home, but the key is in other scenes as well. There is a series where the woman is seen sitting at a table; two other versions of her come in, so we see three versions of the woman at the table. Each version picks up the key, shows it in her palm, then the key reappears on the table for another version of the woman to pick up and display. However, the third time the scene is played, the version picking up the key has a palm painted black, and the key becomes the knife. Is the key the knife or is the knife the key? I can't tell.
Ultimately, we come to the scene where the man comes home and instead of heading upstairs to where the wife is sleeping he finds her in a chair with blood shown on her throat, which appears to have been cut. Is the man death? Her death? Is her relationship with the man literal death or figurative death?
The man is portrayed by Hammid, and the woman is played by Deren. Is the movie a reflection of their marriage? Of all marriages between men and women (at least in 1943)? Does the woman give up her life for the man? That will be my interpretation. That the home represents the place where the woman dies, figuratively speaking. That the man represents the death of that woman as an individual. The key to the home represents the knife with which she ends her life -- the key to the home is the instrument of her death as an individual. There's an old saying that through marriage a man and a woman become one, and that one is the man.
This is an interpretation which is personal, and I think "Meshes of the Afternoon" not only invites personal interpretation but requires it. The viewer must bring his or her own fund of experience to the viewing and must use that experience to fund the ambiguities purposefully put into the film. "Meshes of the Afternoon" ensnares us into providing our own meaning if we are to find any meaning at all. Others will surely disagree with my interpretation because they bring a different fund to the film. I'm not sure Deren and Hammid would have a problem with that. And neither do I.