Meshes of the Afternoon

I think I may be the only one who was significantly freaked-out by this film. Seeing it made my stomach turn in knots of fear, and made me feel extremely uneasy. I have been thinking about why I had this reaction, and I can't quite put my finger on the reason. I think part of it is that there are so many versions of herself by the end, who are coexisting-each seemingly alone in her own thoughts-in one dream like reality. The other reason I was made uncomfortable by this film was the mirror-masked figure. For some reason that really scared me. I think it was because we couldn't see the face or determine who the figure was, or really what were their intentions. The shots of the figure walking slowly away and Maya Deren running after it but never being able to catch up sort of reminded me of a zombie film. The zombies always walk very slowly but steadily, while their prey run out of control, and in the end the slow steady stalking wins out. I was also put off by the fact that after she ran after the mirror figure, she just gave up and turned to go inside. It was as if someone else was controlling her actions. All in all I think there are many reasons why this film was so scary to me, and I find it very interesting that this film, which to me was very horror-esque, is just a dream sequence to someone else.