I was excited going into last weeks screening, ready to see more American films, especially ones by a woman. Meshes of the Afternoon, the first of the Maya Deren films we watched, resonated most emotionally with me.

Most specifically, I remember thinking the music made the movie so much more suspenseful and creepy than it would have been were we watching it in silence. The off notes and very non-musical sounds gave me chills, especially in the scenes with the mysterious mirror-faced grim reaper.

For a movie of it's time, Afternoon is definitely far advanced. In the scene when the four versions of the woman all sit together at a table, there had to be extreme editing and montage work for that to have worked in the early '40s. Still today so much work has to be put in to create two of the same person in a scene; think of what time and craft it would take in the earlier days of cinema.

At the same time, the film uses some very rudimentary techniques. Jump cuts switch the knife and the key back and forth; literal camera movement corresponds with the actress to make it seem as though the stairs are at a different angle than they appear. The juxtaposition of such simple technical techniques beside the extremely advanced ones aforementioned makes this movie such an interesting success. I also think it added to the dream (or nightmarish) quality of the film, as often our dreams are a mix of the possible and the impossible.