Un chien andalou

Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog in English) is a 16 minute surrealist short film made in France by Luis Buñuel (Writer/Director) and Salvador Dalí in 1928. It is one of the best known surrealist films of the 1920s French avant-garde film movement. It stars Simone Mareuil and Pierre Batcheff as the unnamed protagonists.

Synopsis

Describing Un chien andalou is difficult because the film has no "plot" in the strict sense of the word. In terms of its structure, it is at least as nonlinear as any film ever made. It uses dream logic that can be described in terms of Freudian free association. The film is a series of apparently unrelated, and at times potentially offensive, scenes that attempt to shock the viewer. It also features surprising camera angles and other film tricks.

The film opens with a scene in which a woman's eye is slit by a razor (the man with the razor is played by Buñuel himself), and continues with a series of surreal scenes, including the following:

an androgynous woman pokes at a severed hand in the street with her cane
a man drags two grand pianos containing dead and rotting donkeys, the tablets of the Ten Commandments, and two live priests (Dalí plays one of the priests in this scene)
a man's hand has a hole in the palm from which ants emerge. The French phrase "ants in the palms," (which means that someone is "itching" to kill) is shown literally.
a woman's armpit hair attaches itself to a man's face.

There are two central characters, a man and a woman, who appear in both scenes, but they are unnamed. The chronology of the film is disjointed; jumping from "once upon a time" to "eight years later," etc.

Analysis

American film critic Roger Ebert called Un chien andalou "the most famous short film ever made, and anyone halfway interested in the cinema sees it sooner or later, usually several times."^*

Critics have suggested that Un chien andalou can be understood as a typically Buñuelian anti-bourgeois, anticlerical piece. The man dragging a piano, donkey and priests has been interpreted as an allegory of man's progress towards his goal being hindered by the baggage of society's conventions that he is forced to bear. Likewise, the image of an eyeball being sliced by a razor can be understood as Buñuel "attacking" the film's viewers. Also, Federico García Lorca viewed this film as a personal attack on him.

In spite of these varying interpretations, Buñuel makes clear through his writings, that between Dalí and himself, the only rule for the writing of the script was that "no idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted."

Some scholars argue that Un chien andalou might be the genesis of the filmmaking style present in the modern music video. Others say it is among the first low budget independent films.

Behind the scenes

The eyeball being sliced is in fact a cow's eye.

Modern prints of the film feature a soundtrack: excerpts from "Liebestod", from Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and two Argentinian tangos. These are the same music that Buñuel played on a phonograph during the original 1929 screening; he first added them to a sound print of the film in 1960. (Ref. Buñuel, 1968)

Both of the main actors in the film eventually committed suicide.

Influence

Laurel and Hardy's 1929 comedy short, Wrong Again has a scene with a horse on a piano, a possible reference to Un chien andalou's donkeys in pianos.
The film is heavily referenced in the Pixies' song "Debaser".
During his 1976 tour, rock star David Bowie used the film as his opening act.
Esthero's music video for "Heaven Sent" draws heavily from the film's imagery.
The Eraserheads song "Andalusian Dog" derives heavily from the imagery of the film.
The 1990s animated series The Critic parodies a scene from the film (the nun on the bike) in an episode.
A 2003 South Korean film Oldboy features the scene in which ants are coming out of vein on the hero's arm. The hero later become a killer.
A 2005 advert for Stella Artois was heavily inspired by the film. The advert's most direct reference is a shot of a cracked egg from which ants emerge — a more television-friendly version of the hand scene in the original.
The film Birth was heavily influenced by Un chien andalou.^*

Notes

References

External links

Un Chien Andalou Site dedicated to the film
Download Un chien andalou at the Internet Archive
Download an avant-garde compilation of classics including Un chien andalou (Bunuel), Entr'Acte by René Clair and Anémic Cinéma by Marcel Duchamp at World Cinema Online ^*
Roger Ebert's review
Un chien andalou and Debaser

1928 films | Short films | Surreal films | Salvador Dalí | Films directed by Luis Buñuel