Meshes in the Afternoon

I found our class discussion of Meshes of the Afternoon to be quite interesting. Several theories intended to explain the more “symbolic” motifs of the film were advocated: pregnancy, fertility, abuse, suicide, and loss of virginity, to name a few. I’ll admit that I had never considered any of these conclusions prior to class. What fascinates me the most is how the minds of everyone who shared these ideas seemed to be operating in a similar way to the mind of the sleeping woman played by Maya Deren. After reading the assigned articles, I am almost entirely convinced that Deren’s purpose was not to send us a message about any one such theme. Rather, I believe she was more concerned with, as one of the articles says, one’s “experiences about the incident”. Deren chose to have her character encounter objects in the “awake” sequence that could be associated with various, ambiguous, universally-symbolic meanings, references that are exaggerated to a disturbingly emotional distortion in the woman’s mind as she replays the once innocuous incident over and over again. I think Deren was harnessing the fact that humans’ vulnerability is related to their tendency to draw associations between everyday occurrences in a sexual and violent manner. We underestimate the power of suggestion.