As we took up French Surrealism in films, we watched Un
Chien Andalou directed by Luis Buñuel in 1929, a
Surrealist short film for us to know or have an idea what surrealism is all
about. The film was in black and white and it was a silent movie meaning characters
were not delivering any dialogues so we based our understanding of the film
just depending on how the characters act including their facial expressions,
gestures and movements but there was a background music or instrumentals which
added drama or effect to the film.
Surrealism,
being referred to as ‘dream-like,’ Un Chien Andalou on it’s part contained
images which ranges from erotic, frightening, funny, strange, and
symbolic. The film for me was very confusing because of its abstractness
specially when one scene could not be connected to the other and so on. It was
artistic in a way but as I watch the film a couple of times, I could not see
any sense that it made or gave to the audience. Maybe for those who critically
thought about it and saw sense in the film. Maybe there was. But for me, the
film was just created to play with the minds of the viewers by letting them see
scenes such as cutting of eyeball, ants coming out of one’s hand, pulling two
priests and two grand pianos with dead donkeys on top of it, and the closing
scene wherein half of the bodies of two characters were already excavated from
the soil. These scenes would rarely happen in real life that’s why it is
dream-like.
It
takes a very artistic mind for one to appreciate surrealist films since
it shows unusual, daring and subversive scenes.
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