1943
Meshes of the Afternoon
Directed by Maya Deren
USA
The first time I saw Meshes of the Afternoon was an accident. I was hanging out in the A/V department of University of Alabama’s main Library, looking for another film which someone was already watching so I started to brose the listings, and I ran across this 1943 18 minute avant- garde/independent silent film. I remember thinking at the time, ok that’s way over my head, but it’s kind of cool. Over the years, when I first saw Goddard’s Alphaville I thought of Maya’s first film, or anytime I’ve watched a David Lynch film, I always think of Meshes of the afternoon.
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| Maya Deren |
This is a true independent film, not a big star making a “little” picture for 10 million instead of 100 million, this is the real thing, well at least real in the sense of making it on your boot straps, as far as the film itself, it’s about as real as surrealist can get!
Maya does in 18 minutes what Christopher Nolen tried to do with 100 million bucks, and 3 hours worth of stock, but he still doesn’t come.
The force behind this film is an Ukrainian named Eleanora Dernkowsky, whose family moved to America to avoid the growing anti-Semitism spreading across Europe and Russia Unlike most immigrants, they had the means to move about and they settled in Syracuse and they had the means to send Eleanora to college, & grad school. The family changed their UIkrainian name to Deren, and when Eleanora started making films, she started using the name Maya.
This is one of several selections for this list that I’ve struggled with. Not because it’s so out of the main stream, in fact, that may be the reason it makes this list; that and its poetic and rhythmic story narrative. It has a great look for 1943, if you didn’t know any better you would think it was filmed in the 60s not the 40s. It is a poem on film. No the reason I struggled with this selection it’s another feminist narrative that conveys the struggles of the middle class woman, the woman caught in the confinement of her role, I understand that is important, but I want to see the story of my mother and my grandmothers, who worked just as hard as their husbands, then came home and took care of kids, then worked at home, I would like to see the struggles of the working class, and after reading about Maya, I am disappointed that a Trotskyite would define her career about the bourgeoisie, instead of the workers, but that may be much more about my face in the mirror than her work.
But it is a wonderful piece of film making, and you can watch it the whole film plus a nice audi interview with Maya, and you can thank the wonderful World Wide Web!
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