Maya Deren

Maya Deren, Born: 29th April 1917 - 13 October 1961 in, Kiev, Ukraine. Deren was one of the most important American experimental filmmakers and entrepreneurial promoters of the avant-garde in the 1940's and 1950's. Deren was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, writer and photographer. Deren believed that the function of film, like most art forms, was to create an experience; each one of her films would evoke new conclusions, lending her focus to be dynamic and always evolving.

She combined hr interests in dance, Haitian Vodou and subjective psychology in a series of surreal, perceptual, black and white short films. Using editing, multiple exposures, jump cutting, superimposition, slow motion and other camera techniques to her fullest advantage.

Meshes of The Afternoon:

Original music score by Teiji Ito

http://www.zappinternet.com/video/zajDveMkoS/Maya+Deren+-+Meshes+of+the+afternoon+(1943)/

Meshes of The Afternoon has multiple recurring motifs such as a flower in a driveway, a knife, a key a unlocked door and a cloaked figure with a mirror instead of a face which is similar to the grim reaper. Cleaver editing, distinctive camera angles and slow motion create a surrealist world where reality becomes harder to catch.

Maya Deren (The woman) appears to be caught in a cycle of running after this clocked figure and ending up back in her house, this is her dream world and may represent how she is chasing for answers but getting no avail, the cloaked figure with a mirror instead of a face forms a physical representation of her trying to find herself and understand herself.

During the middle of the film she begins to see multiples of herself repeating the same actions of the dream, for example picking up the flower and chasing the hooded figure. the multiple representations of herself may resemble how she is suck in a pattern in her life and her subconscious ming is showing that struggle through a repetitive dream sequence. As well as this the multiples of her self may show the different sizes to a woman personality put into physical form. When they all sit at a table enforces the idea that women live with multiples of their selfs and that this particular woman has come to terms with the multiple personalities she has.

Throughout the short film there is a reoccurring motif of a key and a locked door, to me the key is a symbol of her attempt to open and push through the the outside world and the locked doors and not letting hr do this, due to it being hr own dreamworld its as if she is stopping herself from opening up even though she wants to maybe because she is afraid of the circumstances?