The Strange and Unsettling World of "Un Chien Andalou"

I can still recall the first time that I had the privilege to view Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel's silent surrealist masterpiece Un Chien Andalou. I watched the film at about 1:30 in the morning during my first semester at ICC. When I saw the images presented, I was repulsed, shocked, confused, but, more than anything, fascinated. Since seeing Un Chien Andalou, I have been somewhat obsessed with surrealist cinema. That being said, I was disappointed that the textbook delegated no more than a blurb at the bottom of the page to the entire movement. Un Chien Andalou and other films produced by this movement were important to the movement in their time and have since gone on to majorly influence some modern visual art forms.


First off, here's Un Chien Andalou in its entirety:
Full Film (16 minutes)


As the textbook said, "Dali exhibited a perverse desire to shock his audiences." I can definitely say that some of the imagery is very shocking to me (and, like any member of today's society with an affinity for pop culture, I've seen a lot). I think it's amazing that, 82 years since its creation, the film still holds that power.

The idea of the creators came from dreams they had had, such as a dream of Dali's about a hand crawling with ants. They took Freud's ideas of suppressed emotions and the unconscious and attempted to put some of the darker images contained in those areas of the mind into the light. Throughout the film, bizarre violence, nightmarish images, religious references, and the theme of death assault the viewer. Taking all of these ideas and smashing them together into one incredibly unsettling film certainly fulfilled many tenets of surrealism. Dali stated that seeking a meaning in his paintings would be to miss the point altogether. Rather, like his other art, the film was designed to "stamp (itself) indelibly upon the mind," a goal which it admirably accomplishes.

Un Chien Andalou has also been very important to modern filmmakers of all sorts. Well-known critic Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, pointed out that it was one of the first "independent movies." Ken Dancyger, a film scholar, made an inference that the film (with its unique mix of bizarre images, quick cuts, and the like) had a major influence on the making of music videos. A great example of surrealistic styling in music video's is the clip for Soundgarden's 1994 track "Black Hole Sun."

Also, the movie had an INCREDIBLE amount of influence on such classic filmmakers as Cocteau, Renoir, Bergman, and Fellini. The influence stretched even beyond them, to such directors as David Lynch, whose 1977 debut film Eraserhead definitely reflects some of the feeling and ideals of surrealism.

In summation, I find the surrealist film Un Chien Andalou to be of great importance, both in studying the art movement of surrealism and film itself. You may be asking yourself: what does it mean? Don't. Ask how it makes you feel.