Un Chien Andalou

Plot

The film opens with a shocking sequence where a man, played by director Luis Buñuel, sharpens a straight razor and appears to slice the eye of a woman as a thin cloud passes over the moon. What follows is a series of disjointed, dream-like vignettes that defy linear logic, including a man dragging two grand pianos filled with rotting donkey carcasses and two priests across a room to reach a woman. The narrative jumps through time with title cards such as 'Eight years later' and 'Around three in the morning,' though the characters and settings remain largely the same. Ants emerge from a hole in a man's palm, a severed hand is toyed with in the street, and characters undergo sudden, inexplicable transformations or deaths. The film concludes with a static, haunting image of a man and woman buried in sand up to their chests, seemingly preserved like statues or insects in a display.

Historical Background

Created in 1929, the film arrived at the height of the Surrealist movement in Paris, led by André Breton. It was a time of great intellectual upheaval where artists were obsessed with Sigmund Freud's theories of the unconscious and the rejection of traditional morality following the trauma of World War I. The film served as a manifesto for Surrealism in cinema, moving away from the 'Impressionist' style of French filmmaking toward something more aggressive and confrontational. It also marked the transition period between the silent era and the 'talkies,' though its creators chose to remain within the visual language of silence to enhance the dream-like atmosphere.

Making Of

The collaboration between Buñuel and Dalí was intense and focused on the subversion of bourgeois sensibilities. They wrote the script in six days at Dalí's home in Cadaqués, purposefully rejecting any elements that suggested a rational plot. During production, Dalí was frequently on set, assisting with the art direction and the 'look' of the more grotesque elements, such as the piano arrangement. Buñuel handled the technical direction and editing, ensuring the pacing felt like the 'free association' found in psychoanalysis. The production was entirely self-financed, which allowed the duo total creative freedom without the interference of censors or commercial interests.

Visual Style

The cinematography, handled by Albert Duverger, uses a flat, objective style that makes the bizarre events seem more real and disturbing. The film employs 'match cuts' (such as the moon and the eye) to create subconscious links between unrelated objects. The use of slow-motion, double exposure, and iris shots are used not for decoration, but to disorient the viewer's sense of time and space. The lighting is often bright and high-contrast, avoiding the 'shadowy' tropes of German Expressionism in favor of a stark, clinical reality.

Innovations

The film is a masterclass in creative editing and the use of practical special effects on a shoestring budget. The eye-slitting sequence is one of the earliest and most effective examples of 'invisible editing' to create a horrific illusion. The use of stop-motion for the ants appearing in the hand and the complex rigging required to drag the pianos and priests across a studio floor were significant technical undertakings for an independent short film in 1929.

Music

While originally silent, Buñuel later supervised a synchronized soundtrack in 1960. This score consists of Richard Wagner's 'Liebestod' from the opera 'Tristan und Isolde' and two popular Argentine tangos. The juxtaposition of the grand, romantic Wagnerian music with the grotesque imagery of rotting donkeys and severed hands creates a sense of 'ironic distance' and emotional dissonance that is central to the surrealist experience.

Memorable Scenes

• The slicing of the eyeball with a straight razor, synchronized with a cloud passing the moon.
• The man dragging two grand pianos containing dead donkeys and two bewildered priests.
• Ants swarming out of a hole in the center of a man's palm.
• A man poking a severed hand in the middle of a busy street with a cane.
• The final shot of the couple 'in the springtime' buried in the sand, unmoving.

What Critics Said

Upon its release, the film was a 'succès de scandale,' attracting both high praise from the artistic elite and horror from traditionalists. André Breton officially welcomed Buñuel and Dalí into the Surrealist circle because of it. Modern critics, such as Roger Ebert, have praised it as a 'foundational stone of modern cinema,' noting that its imagery remains shocking even by contemporary standards. It currently holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, reflecting its status as an untouchable masterpiece of the avant-garde.

What Audiences Thought

Initial audiences were shocked, with reports of people fainting or fleeing the theater during the eye-slitting scene. However, it became a cult hit among the Parisian intelligentsia, running for nearly a year in specialized theaters. Today, it is a staple of film school curricula, often eliciting a mixture of laughter, disgust, and awe from modern viewers who are surprised by how 'modern' the editing and concepts feel despite being nearly a century old.

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