Caseus Archivelox: Un Chien Andalou

2002-01-22
With little context or plot, “Un Chien Andalou” could play as a sort of insane person’s dream, and that is almost a definition of surrealism. Nothing makes sense from a rational viewpoint, and nothing is supposed to make sense. No meaning should be clear from the images. There is nothing to link any shot to the next, and, although some shots share the same characters, there is little to suggest that any shots should link to the next one. This is one of the first true surrealist films. Although Salvador Dali would eventually do more work in film, including designing the incredible dream sequence in “Spellbound” (which made sense from a psychoanalytic standpoint), this is the pinnacle of shock surrealism. The shot of the barber cutting open the girl’s eye is so shocking that nothing in film history has been able to come close in causing complete discomfort for the audience. This is, of course, precisely what Dali and Buñuel wanted to do. Although later scenes were not quite as shocking, it kept the dream aspect of surrealism very strong. Ants crawling out of hands, dead donkeys, priests, and the ten commandments on two pianos, two people almost completely buried in sand all defy any logical explanation that would be able to comfort any audience that attempted to watch the film. Surrealism is the attempt to make dreams real, and this movie does this well, as the man fondles the clothed woman, which, with a quick dissolve, shows what he really sees: her naked body. But this shot is only one of many in the film that would make sense from a logical standpoint on their own in a film of otherwise rational shots, contribute to the overall sensory and mental overload that the film forces upon the viewer.
While Buñuel has gone on to make more structured, and sensible films, this one will be his most famous as it was a very early film, scandalizing the audience, and setting out to do what it was designed to do: confuse everyone and not allow for easy deconstruction.