Meshes of the Afternoon Hammid's desire to create an avant garde personal film that dealt with devastating psychological problems, like the French surrealist films of the 1920s such as Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel's "Un Chien Andalou" (1929) and "L'Age d'Or" (1930). Deren and Hammid wrote, directed and performed in the film. Although Deren is usually credited as its principal artistic creator, filmmaker Stan Brakhage, who knew the couple, has claimed in his book "Film at Wit's End" that "Meshes" was in fact largely Hammid's creation, and that their marriage began to suffer when Deren received more credit. The original print had no score.
Un Chien Andalou appears near the door. The young man and the young woman stare at his hand, which has a hole in the palm from which ants emerge. A slow transition occurs focusing on the armpit hair of the young woman as she lies on the beach and a sea urchin at a sandy location. There is a cut to an androgynous young woman, with bobbed hair and dressed in rather masculine attire, in the street below the apartment. She pokes at a severed human hand with her cane while surrounded by a large crowd held back by policemen. The crowd clears