The Neon Demon of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali's groundbreaking surrealist short "Un Chien Andalou" – that all you can do is howl or cheer." Tirdad Derakhshani, writing for "The Philadelphia Inquirer", called Refn a "bold visionary artist... able to revel in the culture of instant gratification while also subjecting it to critique", giving the film three and a half out of four stars and calling it a "brutal masterpiece". Rene Rodriguez of "The Miami Herald" wrote positively of the film's visuals and experimental filmmaking, writing, "To complain that "The Neon Demon" lacks substance or that it doesn't have anything to say about
Maya Deren influence because of the surreal nature of "Meshes of the Afternoon". Bunuel's "Un Chien Andalou" (1928) is on the premier examples of film representing the structure of the subconscious. Deren detested this comparison because of the surrealist movement's interest in the entertainment value of its subject more than its meaning. The form of "Meshes of the Afternoon" does not compare to Un Chien Andalou either. Psychoanalysis of "Meshes of the Afternoon" from a Freudian viewer or Jungian viewer attempted to decode the symbolism in the film to uncover what Deren was saying about identity and sexuality. Deren adamantly objected her