Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)

[related: Maya Deren]

A 14-minute fever loop filmed in director and featured actor Maya Deren’s rented Los Angeles house. Shot on 16mm with almost no budget, the film uses kitchen knives, telephone cords, and flower petals as recurring dream objects that feel like half-remembered threats. The cloaked figure AKA Death with a mirror for a face—now iconic—was played by Deren herself, walking in slow motion up a sunlit hill. There's no dialogue, just a visual recursion of actions: the key on the stairs…the tumbling loaf of bread…the record player stuck in a loop. When a soundtrack of classical Japanese music was added in 1959 by Teiji Ito (Deren’s third husband, 18 years her junior), it turned the film into a cult object for generations of cinephiles and experimental musicians. .