Avant Garde

Avant Garde

"Ahead of the crowd"

"Cutting edge"

"Experimental"

Avant Garde is a style of film making involving experimental themes, ideas and camera/editing techniques. They are defined by their unconventional ways of expressing ideas and sometimes their abstract narratives. The movement of the Avant Garde film style began in the early 20th century because some film makers didn't agree with the codes and conventions of mainstream films. One such film maker was Maya Deren:

Maya Deren (29 April, 1917 – 13 October, 1961) was a key figure in the creation of American Avant Garde and was sometimes described as the 'mother of American Avant Garde'. She was a film director of experimental films in the 1940s and 1950s. The anti-mainstream stance within her films promotes the idea of artistic license and creative freedom.

"I make my pictures for what Hollywood spend on lipstick." - Maya Deren


She was referring to the fact that her productions are low in budget compared to major Hollywood film companies, she doesn't think that Hollywood allow for freedom of creativity.


One of Deren's most well known films is called Meshes of the Afternoon.

"Meshes of the Afternoon" has a circular narrative, things happen more than once, it's repetitive. For example, the film finishes with the woman in the same place that she was when the film started. "Meshes of the Afternoon" seems to explore the idea of death. This is suggested through falling asleep, dreaming and the idea of a grim reaper in the film. Whenever this grim reaper appears, or is close, there seems to be an sinister, ominous drone. It sounds nonhuman and sacrificial. The film itself is like a dream, fairly surreal, because in a dream people may try to piece things together illogically. Though this would make people think that it is easy to decide whether or not the protagonist is dreaming or not, that's not the case in "Meshes of the Afternoon". The whole film is dreamlike, so it is confusing to the audience. As a film to experiment with dreams vs reality, this could have sparked off the ideas for modern say surreal films such as Inception, where the audience do not know if the film-world is supposed to be a dream or reality. There is a lot of imagery used in this film, most if it may be significant, yet it is not really clear what it means. For example, there i a flower shown more than once, a key and a knife that seem to morph into each other at times. I think it's definitely up to the audience to decide what these objects mean in relation to the film. Personally, the imagery makes me think of self expression and the woman trying to figure out who she really is. The flower represents her life. The key could be significant in unlocking secrets about her. The knife, for me, represents suicide or death. This links to the grim reaper figure, which has a mirror for a face. When the woman looks at this, all she sees is herself, and maybe that the woman can't figure herself out, she doesn't know who she is, and is deciding whether to end her life or not. The film uses some very experimental ideas such as the circular narrative and weird shots, that is one of the main reasons for it, I believe, as well as to let the audience decide on it's meaning. Personally, I didn't understand the film much at all, it mainly just confused me. "Meshes of the Afternoon" is a very poetic sounding name, and the film itself is kind of poetic. Like poetry, the film can be interpreted differently by different people.