Un chien andalou

I still remember my visit to Philadelphia Museum of Art, back in the April of 2005. One of the reasons I went there was to to see the Salvador Dali's exhibitions but the tickets were sold out. While in the museum, I was able to see two films that Dali was a big part of. In the video Gallery of the museum, two intriguing projects have been running together in the continuous loop, the early "Un Chien Andalou" (17 minutes) and the recently released, animated Destino (6 minutes). This was the first viewing for me. I kept coming back to the gallery few more times and I never was tired of both short films.

The inspiration for "Un Chien Andalou" began with the dreams of two young rebellious men, the artists and the friends, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. They exchanged the dreams they both had, Bunuel - about a slender cloud slicing the moon in half "like a razor blade slicing through an eye", and Dali - about a dream involving a hand enveloped by ants. Both artists soon began working on a film script based on these ideas.

Made in 1929, the film has not aged at all. Its disconnected but haunting scenes and images are as shocking today (at least, for me they were) as I am sure they were all these years ago for the viewers who faced them for the first time. The reason the film is so powerful even now may be the themes of love, sex, death, and decay that are eternal and will always attract the artists and audiences alike. It is also could be in the establishing and following by both artists the certain rules, "No idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind will be accepted...We had to open all doors to the irrational and keep only those images that surprised us without trying to explain why." Perhaps, Dali and Bunuel intended their film to be experienced directly, on the visceral level, and not analyzed by the viewers.

This famous film starts in a dream-like sequence, a woman's eye (a cow's eye was actually used) is slit open and juxtaposed with a similarly shaped cloud obscuring . After that , there take place several bizarre events such as a man has a hole in the palm from which ants emerge , it is shown literally ; later on , a man pulls a piano along with the tablets of the Ten Commandments and a dead donkey and two priests being dragged with the piano (a priest is Salvador Dalí) ; a woman pokes at a severed hand in the street with his cane (legend has it that the severed hand used in the street scene was a real hand, and Dali convinced a man to cut it off in exchange for enough money to buy lunch) , among others .

Abstract film that marked strong polemic in the epoch when it was realised , especially its sliced eyeball at the beginning , and still packs a punch even nowadays . In fact , at the Paris premiere, Luis Buñuel hid behind the screen with stones in his pockets for fear of being attacked by the confused audience . After editing the feature , Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí didn't know what to do with it , as an acquaintance introduced Buñuel to Man Ray, who had just finished Les Mystères du château Dé and was looking for a second film to complete the program , the two movies premiered together at the Studio Ursulines ; it made a deep impression on the Surrealist Group, who welcomed Buñuel into their ranks . The movie contains several references to Federico García Lorca and other writers of that time . The rotting donkeys are a reference to the novel "Platero y yo" by Juan Ramón Jiménez, which Luis Buñuel and Dalí hated . In 1960, a soundtrack was added to this film at the direction of Luis Buñuel , he used the same music which was played , using phonograph records , at the 1929 screenings-extracts from "Liebestod" from Richard Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" and two Argentinian tangos.

This rare short belongs to Luis Buñuel's first period and has been voted as one of "The 25 Most Dangerous Movies" . After moving to Paris , Buñuel did a variety of film-related odd jobs , including working as an assistant to director Jean Epstein . With financial help from his mother and creative assistance from Dalí, he made his first film , this 17-minute "Un Chien Andalou" (1929), and immediately catapulted himself into film history thanks to its disturbing images and surrealist plot . The following year , sponsored by wealthy art patrons, he made his first picture , the scabrous witty and violent "Age of Gold" (1930), which mercilessly attacked the church and the middle classes, themes that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career . That career, though, seemed almost over by the mid-1930s, as he found work increasingly hard to come by and after the Spanish Civil War , where he made ¨Las Hurdes¨ , as Luis emigrated to the US where he worked for the Museum of Modern Art and as a film dubber for Warner Bros . He subsequently went on his Mexican period with "The Great Madcap" , ¨Los Olvidados¨ , ¨The brute¨, "Wuthering Heights", ¨El¨ , "The Criminal Life of Archibaldo De la Cruz" , ¨Robinson Crusoe¨ and many others . And finally his French-Spanish period with notorious as well as polemic films such as ¨Viridiana¨ , Tristana¨ , ¨The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" and his last picture , "That Obscure Object of Desire" .

this movie may be dated in a certain sense, but the vitality and passion of its vicious rebellion against societal taboos and constraints still comes through full throttle. bunuel, master of cinematic/surrealist revolt, violates every boundary he can think of. a woman's eyeball is slashed open, her chest brutally groped, ants crawl out of a man's hand, etc. this is more of a curiosity than anything else, but I am a surrealism fanatic and love this along with Cocteau's "Blood of a Poet". the reviewers here who downplay it's value are simply wrong and probably decided in advance to dislike it to look different.

I saw this recently n i am shocked at the violent content n nudity in a film made in 1929.

Candyman borrowed the scene where insects come out of a palm.

I find it hilarious that so many people who have posted here are even attempting to place any meaning whatsoever into this film's imagery! The only point to be made in this movie is that there should be no point to be made. Any significance placed onto anything contained in this film is a complete fabrication of the narrow-minded viewer who believes movies are only made to carry some message. That is the genius of Bunuel and Dali. They were surrealists. The point of surrealism is that there is no point, no meaning whatsoever.

Personally, you all may dissect (pun intended) and pore over this great film if you please, but you are fools in the eyes of the (deceased) filmmakers for doing so.