Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid took inspiration from surrealist films like Un chien andalou and L'Age d'Or by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel for their own avant-garde short film—even though they repeatedly denied it themselves. Following a similar dream logic, Meshes of the Afternoon tells a circular story about a dreaming woman. Various visual motives, such as a falling key and a knife in a piece of bread, pass repeatedly, making both characters and spectators lose any grip on reality.

According to US critic James Hoberman, the film is closer to 1950s Hollywoodian film noir than European surrealism. This oft-acclaimed masterpiece of experimental film history won the Grand Prix International for best avant-garde film at Cannes.