How Meshes of the Afternoon is from the perspective of the main character

 Meshes of the Afternoon is a surrealist film that is said to use "dream logic". It does this by presenting the strange events and imagery over the course of the film directly from the perspective of the protagonist, played by the director, Maya Deren herself. One way the film is presented through her perspective is through POV shots. An example of this is when she walks up the stairs into her bedroom early in the film. There are also many other shots featuring unorthodox camera angles and movement. One of the most notable examples of this is the opening shot of the film in which she picks up a flower. This shot is simultaneously a close-up of Deren's hand, as well as a tracking shot as it moves down to pick the flower up; whereas in most conventional films we would instead see a close-up of the flower instead. In fact, a close-up that is also a tracking shot is very rare and unconventional from a film. The unconventional and unorthodox nature of this shot is important, especially as the opening shot, as it begins the film by breaking the audiences comfort zone in a subtle way and allowing them to open up to the surreal, ethereal and dreamlike nature of the film, therefore allowing the audience to see the film through the subjective perspective of the protagonist. This shot and shots similar to this is also important as it only shows the particular part of her body that is necessary to the action that is being presented. This is important because in a dream, we would not think of our entire body as we pick up this flower, we would only focus on our hand. This is accompanied by the way the film is edited, utilising jump cuts. This is because we do not remember our dreams or memories as one full story when we recount them, we jump ahead into important particular events and details, and sometimes they will not even be in a chronological or comprehensible order.