Directed By: Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid
Written By: Maya Deren
Main Cast: Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid
IT CAME FROM YOUTUBE
Although this did, indeed, come from YouTube, if you don't want to watch it while sitting in front of your computer, it is also available on Netflix, as part of a Maya Deren collection.
"Meshes of the Afternoon" is an experimental film and we all know how I feel about those. With the exception of "Wavelength", I've pretty much trashed all experimental cinema that I have watched and unfortunately, "Meshes" will endure the same criticism. If I'd had a notebook as I watched this film, here are some of the words and phrases I would've jotted down: knife, mirror face, flower, loneliness, dream. The whole fourteen minutes of "Meshes of the Afternoon" is, seemingly, a dream. It involves a woman picking up a flower, wondering through her home and encountering a figure, which has a mirror as a face and is dresses in all black. Later, the figure transforms into a man, seemingly her husband. I couldn't make heads or tails of it, to tell you the truth. The film has no dialogue and is very short, which, in my view, makes it almost impossible to form an opinion on.
I'd really like to know what went through the heads of the writers of the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" when they sat down with a blank page and started to compile this list of supposed "must see" films. Did they honestly start rattling off titles like "12 Angry Men", "Rear Window", "The Shawshank Redemption", "Amarcord" and then suddenly say, "Oooh, what about Meshes of the Afternoon?" I find it incredibly difficult to fathom what they were thinking when they felt the need to include this on their list of the 1001 must see pictures. I just do not get it. Trust me folks, there is nothing...I repeat, nothing must see about "Meshes of the Afternoon". If you'd like to go ahead and see it anyway, then by all means do so, because the damn thing only clocks in at fourteen minutes. However, if I were you, I'd save my time. Honestly, this BOOK boggles my mind sometimes. I'm grateful to it, for showing me films that I wouldn't have otherwise seen, but sometimes it's just frustrating.
RATING: 1/10 I don't get experimental films and honestly, I find it very difficult to deem anything that doesn't even run fifteen minutes a "must see", but that's just me. God, talk about a slump...I'm in one!
MOVIES WATCHED: 486
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 515
June 20, 2012 5:33pm
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