Inland Empire + Meshes of the Afternoon

Part of the special series DAVID’S DOUBLE DREAMS

Details and credits for the short film MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON below!

“I figured one day I’d just wake up and find out what the hell yesterday was all about. I’m not too keen on thinkin’ about tomorrow. And today’s slipping by.”
— Nikki

Somewhere, sometime, someone (maybe even several people) has surely managed to put together coherent synopses of the two works MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON and INLAND EMPIRE, managing to give some idea of what the audience might expect — without resorting to shot-by-shot retellings. Just as surely as someone, somewhere, sometime has managed to recount a dream shot for shot hours after waking up.

The narrative doesn’t subordinate the succession of hallucinatory symbols — it yields to it, surrenders to it. One follows the flow — or more accurately: the pull. That’s not to say nothing happens. It’s a ride. All vibes, so to speak.

But here’s an attempt for those who need something more tangible: the protagonists (Maya Deren / Laura Dern) are quite likely experiencing a nightmare with a bad ending / serious consequences. That these may be reflections of their respective lives cannot be ruled out. All of it takes place in Los Angeles / Łódź, over a tight / generous span of 14 / 180 minutes.

The pairing of these two enigmatic masterpieces is, as the consciously feeble attempts at explanation above are meant to suggest, the wildest and most associative in the series — though in our eyes, quite a coherent one when considering their production (circumstances) alone. Boldly shot on 16mm / digital, often in the creators’ own homes, with the help of a close circle of collaborators and largely self-/privately funded, one film marks a rupture in the timeline of cinematic surrealism, while the other concludes one of the most influential and, in a broader sense, surreal filmographies in the history of the medium.

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MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON
A film by Maya Deren, Alexander Hackenschmied (Hammid)
USA 1943, 14 min, no dialogue

Directed by: Maya Deren, Alexander Hackenschmied
Written by: Maya Deren
Music: Teiji Ito (1959 re-scored version)
Cinematography: Alexander Hackenschmied
Editing: Maya Deren
Cast: Maya Deren, Alexander Hackenschmied