Director Deren (born in Kiev) was a leading experimental filmmaker in New York in the forties and fifties. With Meshes of the Afternoon in 1947 she won the International Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.
"Meshes of the Afternoon 1943" is probably one of the most discussed American avant-garde film ever.
Maya Deren clearly reaches back to the surrealism from the '20s (Un Chien Andalou, Luis Bunuel and Dali) but also points in a new direction.
Deren was one of the first women who started working in film, and in this movie for the first time in history elements as psychoanalysis, dream logic and inner reality were used.
The film is a dizzying, nightmarish quest for identity and consciousness, surrealism and dream logic played an important role.
Meshes of the Afternoon was one of the first American films where poetic expressiveness and symbolism were used above a linear plot, and had immense influence on just about everything that came after.
The film assembly from Deren was never seen before, cinematic time and space were deposed of their static character.
In films of Maya Deren, these filmic time and space elements are not bound by traditional rules, but they were used in a very creative way.
Maya Deren explores in her first influential experimental film an unconscious woman who daydreams.
This experimental black and white short film shows the director himself in a threatening dream world in which she always enters the same house.
The similarity between Meshes of the Afternoon and Un Chien Andalou, is the dream experience, generated by cinema.
"Meshes of the Afternoon 1943" is probably one of the most discussed American avant-garde film ever.
Maya Deren clearly reaches back to the surrealism from the '20s (Un Chien Andalou, Luis Bunuel and Dali) but also points in a new direction.
Deren was one of the first women who started working in film, and in this movie for the first time in history elements as psychoanalysis, dream logic and inner reality were used.
The film is a dizzying, nightmarish quest for identity and consciousness, surrealism and dream logic played an important role.
Meshes of the Afternoon was one of the first American films where poetic expressiveness and symbolism were used above a linear plot, and had immense influence on just about everything that came after.
The film assembly from Deren was never seen before, cinematic time and space were deposed of their static character.
In films of Maya Deren, these filmic time and space elements are not bound by traditional rules, but they were used in a very creative way.
Maya Deren explores in her first influential experimental film an unconscious woman who daydreams.
This experimental black and white short film shows the director himself in a threatening dream world in which she always enters the same house.
The similarity between Meshes of the Afternoon and Un Chien Andalou, is the dream experience, generated by cinema.
