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"Inspired by the Surrealist film "Un Chien Andalou", the act of cutting a selected eye on the chosen iconic face is considered surreal." -ClockWork Cros
Un Chien Andalou is a sixteen minute silent surrealist short film produced in France by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It is one of the best-known surrealist films of the avant-garde movement of the 1920s.
The film has no plot in the conventional sense of the word. The chronology of the film is disjointed, jumping from the initial "once upon a time" to "eight years later" without the events or characters changing very much. It uses dream logic in narrative flow that can be described in terms of then-popular Freudian free association, presenting a series of tenuously related scenes.
The film opens with a title card reading "Once upon a time". What may be the film's conclusion unfolds; a middle-aged man, (played by Buñuel), sharpens his razor at his balcony door and tests the razor on his thumb. He then opens the door, and idly fingers the razor while gazing at the moon, about to be engulfed by a thin cloud, from his balcony. There is a cut to a close-up of a young woman, (Simone Mareuil), being held by the man as she calmly stares straight ahead. Another cut occurs to the moon being overcome by the cloud as he slits the woman's eye with the razor.
The film has no plot in the conventional sense of the word. The chronology of the film is disjointed, jumping from the initial "once upon a time" to "eight years later" without the events or characters changing very much. It uses dream logic in narrative flow that can be described in terms of then-popular Freudian free association, presenting a series of tenuously related scenes.
The film opens with a title card reading "Once upon a time". What may be the film's conclusion unfolds; a middle-aged man, (played by Buñuel), sharpens his razor at his balcony door and tests the razor on his thumb. He then opens the door, and idly fingers the razor while gazing at the moon, about to be engulfed by a thin cloud, from his balcony. There is a cut to a close-up of a young woman, (Simone Mareuil), being held by the man as she calmly stares straight ahead. Another cut occurs to the moon being overcome by the cloud as he slits the woman's eye with the razor.
The idea for the film actually began when Buñuel was working as an assistant director for Jean Epstein in France. Buñuel told Dalí
at a restaurant one day about a dream in which a cloud sliced the moon
in half "like a razor blade slicing through an eye". The eye that was
actually sliced in the opening scene was that of a dead calf. Through
intense lighting, Buñuel attempted to make the furred face of the animal appear as human skin.
Given the general distaste for surrealism among the French public, Buñuel and Dalí carried sacks of rocks in their pockets on opening night as self-defense, expecting a negative response from the audience. They were disappointed when the audience enjoyed the film, making the evening "less exciting", according to Dalí.
Given the general distaste for surrealism among the French public, Buñuel and Dalí carried sacks of rocks in their pockets on opening night as self-defense, expecting a negative response from the audience. They were disappointed when the audience enjoyed the film, making the evening "less exciting", according to Dalí.
Un Chien Andalou (16 MINS)
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