Un Chien AndalouDreams are not obligated to make sense; it is their prerogative to operate on a coda inherently deprived of conventional rules. Those dreams may linger like an odor in the mind, and resurface like so much flotsam. This is Un Chien Andalou, Luis Bunuel's surreal short film, a vivid array of imagery without coherent context, set to the peppy beat of an Argentinian tango. There is no strict story to summarize, no traditional plot to disclose. Instead Un Chien Andalou--which roughly translates to "An Andalusian Dog"--gives us what we get in the form of materialized metaphor, and depends on us connecting the dots, albeit without any numbers to guide us.
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I think it would be easy--even perhaps correct--to say that Un Chien Andalou has no story, that the film is a shotgun blast of sound and image, all nonsense and absurdity. But what Un Chien Andalou does by virtue of avoiding a narrative--save for the few bewildering title cards--is give each viewer a sense of considering the events, the context, and letting the images float around in our consciousness for a while, maybe coalescing into cohesion...or maybe not. Certainly the imagery is striking, with the most infamous of these bold images heralding the rest of the film: the shot of a cloud slicing across a full moon, a cut to a straight razor doing much the same to the eye of a woman. For the record, the eye is that of a dead cow, but the illusion of film and editing makes it clear what is really supposed to be happening; imagine the reaction to this in 1929, when the film debuted. The idea for Un Chien Andalou--it is said--is that Bunuel told his colleague--none other than Salvador Dali, who has a cameo in the film--that he dreamt of the cloud slicing the moon; Dali replied that he dreamt of ants crawling on a hand. Apparently, this was enough for the two surrealists to make a movie from their dreams, and keep with that motif they did in the bizarre and strange events captured on film. Since we have been conditioned to expect a film to possess a direct narrative, Un Chien Andalou remains shocking because it refuses to adhere to this idea in any way, even when it coaxes us with the temptation of a story. What Un Chien Andalou represents is a kind of condensed bubble of emotion, of feeling put to film, capable of evoking a response from its audience without a clear story.
It is clear that there is something happening in the world of Un Chien Andalou, but we can only surmise from what we are allowed to experience. For instance, there is a woman and there is a man; the woman is being pursued by the man, who seems to have suffered some kind of wound in his hand, from which ants pour forth. After he witnesses a gruesome display in the road regarding a severed hand, he becomes sexually excited, molesting the woman, who refutes his advances, keeping him at bay. He spends some time in bed, and he is harassed (or admonished, perhaps) by another man--who may be him--who he shoots sixteen years before. The woman leaves him for another, and they walk along the beach, contented...until spring, which finds them dead and buried in the sand. Yep. Now, this is but one interpretation of the story, and that is by no means the solitary one. What Bunuel has done is create a story with images as the focus, where metaphor speaks, not characters. Un Chien Andalou remains the definition of modern film--perhaps the earliest example--because it allows for showing before telling, and says, "yes, you can interpret this how you want, audience; your own bias will make your individual experience unique." In some ways, Un Chien Andalou has been called the first "music video", as it is deprived of dialogue, but not music, which permeates the whole of the experience; certainly its influence has been felt in cinematic history, and how we allow sound and image to exist independent of plot, but still tell a story.
Recommended for: Fans of an absurd and surreal film about...well, that's difficult to answer. It is a forward-thinking cinematic experience, one which served as the launch pad for the creative imagery and direction to follow from art house filmmakers forevermore.
It is clear that there is something happening in the world of Un Chien Andalou, but we can only surmise from what we are allowed to experience. For instance, there is a woman and there is a man; the woman is being pursued by the man, who seems to have suffered some kind of wound in his hand, from which ants pour forth. After he witnesses a gruesome display in the road regarding a severed hand, he becomes sexually excited, molesting the woman, who refutes his advances, keeping him at bay. He spends some time in bed, and he is harassed (or admonished, perhaps) by another man--who may be him--who he shoots sixteen years before. The woman leaves him for another, and they walk along the beach, contented...until spring, which finds them dead and buried in the sand. Yep. Now, this is but one interpretation of the story, and that is by no means the solitary one. What Bunuel has done is create a story with images as the focus, where metaphor speaks, not characters. Un Chien Andalou remains the definition of modern film--perhaps the earliest example--because it allows for showing before telling, and says, "yes, you can interpret this how you want, audience; your own bias will make your individual experience unique." In some ways, Un Chien Andalou has been called the first "music video", as it is deprived of dialogue, but not music, which permeates the whole of the experience; certainly its influence has been felt in cinematic history, and how we allow sound and image to exist independent of plot, but still tell a story.
Recommended for: Fans of an absurd and surreal film about...well, that's difficult to answer. It is a forward-thinking cinematic experience, one which served as the launch pad for the creative imagery and direction to follow from art house filmmakers forevermore.