Meshes of the afternoon

  “Messes of the afternoon” is a film directed by Maya Deren, which is a example of a short film in the “Avant-Garde” style.

  This film is typical of its style for a number of reasons. The first thing is that it doesn’t contain a clear narrative, so some shots in the film which don’t seem so clear to understand, are open to interpretation. The soundtrack of the film has a very eerie feel to it and at some points of the film makes you feel slightly uncomfortable.

  The main sequence of the film sees a woman’s shadow shown walking beside a walk. We then see her body when she starts to make her journey up the stairs. She passes different things on her way up, such a telephone on the stairs. She eventually gets up to the top of the stairs and lies down to have a rest. After she closes her eyes, a figure like the grim reaper that has a mirrored face is seen outside her window – because of the style of the film, it is not clear if the figure is in her dream (if she is sleeping) or if it is actually real.

  “Meshes of the afternoon” explores different subject areas such as life & death, dreams and making decisions. It also contains a number of different shots at different angles which make it visually interesting.

Maya Deren - Director

 Maya Deren who was originally from Russia, moved to the USA in 1922 with her family and it was in New York where she studied at university.

 In1943, Maya made her first film called “Meshes of the afternoon”. She worked on the film alongside Alexander Hammid who is well known for his work in documentary film.  Both Maya and Alexander were the directors/makers of the film as well as acting in them themselves. They were married to each other at the time of making of the film.

  As well of being a film maker, Maya was the author of two books: "An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form, and Film" in 1964 and “The Living Gods of Haiti" in 1953. Her book about Haiti was documentation about her experiences of her first visit to the country.  She also made a documentary about the country.

  Maya took an anti-mainstream stance when making her films in order to promote the idea of artist license and creative freedom. 


http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0220305/bio - last accessed on 29^th September

Salary Man 6

  Jake Knight’s Salary Man 6 tells the story of Taishi Shiode, a Tokyo businessman who is involved in an accident which dramatically changes his life and tragically results in him losing his memory. This film follows his journey of firstly discovering that he has lost his memory and then re-tracing his steps to find out how he lost his memory.

   In the opening shot of the film, we see him waking up on the floor in his workplace. Two of his colleagues who were staring at him when he was on the floor, help him stand up but then walk off straight afterwards as if nothing major had happened.

  Taishi then leaves work to commute home. There is a shot of him walking in a subway on his own and this is there to symbolise what has just happened to him. He has lost his memory and is now, in a way disconnected from the rest of his city/the world. He is alone and it is his quest to find out what he had been through.

  As the story progresses, we learn about the repetitive and structured life that he leads. A typical day in his life consists of waking up, going to work, going to the supermarket on the way home and then going to bed and starting the exact same routine again the next day. His daily routine is something that he didn’t seem to really think about before, but as he goes further on his journey, he sees for himself what sort of a mundane and repetitive life that he leads.  He does this by setting his camera on automatic and then developing the films from the camera over a period of about a week. It is after this that he has a flashback and remembers the accident he was involved in.

  I think this is a really effective short film. The idea may be quite simple, but the way it is shot and told makes this a great piece.

short film example - Wasp (2003)

Famous quotes about short films

"Spare economic narratives, interesting storytelling, well structured work which draws in the audience quickly"
Catherine Des Forges

"Short films are long films that end earlier. A good idea, sufficiently told, less is more" 

Gareth Evans 

Comparing short and mainstream films

  Today's lesson gave us a brief introduction to the differences between short and mainstream films. We also looked at short films on their own and brainstormed about the things that we would expect to see in a typical short film - I will include this diagram in my next blog.


  The table below compares mainstream and short films and highlights the main differences between them.