The Poetic Language of Cinema
Final Part Meshes Of the Afternoon This film was produced in 1943 by Maya Deren and Alexander Hamid in Hollywood. It was described as trance film, with both subjective and dreamlike qualities. Unlike The Sky Over Berlin , it seems difficult to provide a short summary about the film, since it has no standard story line to be told. However, we can identify some patterns and movements in the film that are based on small fragmented tales . One is that of a young woman, played by Deren herself, who is looking from a window at a figure in dark dress with its face replaced by a mirror. The young woman, however, can see also herself following the figure, and once more herself following the two! The second fragment is of a man who opens the door of the same flat, finds the young woman and takes her up the stairs. These two fragmented pieces of minimal story elements are broken with similar sub-fragments. All these pieces seem to evolve around each other while the identity of each actor ...