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ART & CULTURE ASSIGNMENT # 2

Analysis of the Film; Un chien andalou by Luis Buuel & Salvador Dali

Un chien andalou is a surrealist French film which was released in 1929. The writer and directors are Luis Buuel and Salvador Dali. The film does not contain words, but music instead. There are two main characters, a man and a woman; and the film is based on their relationship, both in an emotional and physical manner. The film is influenced by the surrealist art movement and Freudian logic, again connected to surrealism movement.

When the film is evaluated under the title of surrealist art, it could be observed that most of the aspects / characteristics of surrealism are observed within it. Surrealist art aims to disorient; to shock and confuse the normal expectations. The film itself is confusing and it does not have a general message in it. The opening with the razor scene is quite shocking and confusing. It does not have a connection with the rest of the film. Another scene, where the ants come out of the mans palm is again, shocking and unexpected, as well as irrational. To speak from the position of the irrational is another aspect of surrealism. The man cutting the eye of the woman, the ants, the masculine lady on the street playing with the hand, the man riding a bicycle with nun clothes are all irrational and they do not make any sense, while not contributing to the flow of the film (well, if theres a flow).

Surrealism is also against the order and reality. The film does not have a chronological order. It jumps from once upon a time to eight years later, while the events and characters do not change. Like in Salvador Dalis paintings, the time is a concept which human beings
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are fighting against. Dali is against the statement of Henri Bergson; time is natures way of preventing everything from happening at once, like other surrealist artists. The films order and placement of events is also against the claim. It can be said that the film uses dream logic in order to show the events and the cycle within the film. This type of logic is associated with Freud and his philosophic approach to human psychology. The covering of the reality is connected with his thoughts of unconscious. The unconscious is those thoughts and ideas that we are not aware of but determine our conscious behavior and thinking. In the movie, the mans sexual desire of woman and dreaming of her naked body points out his unconscious motives; while the father coming in the room to warn and punish the man underlines the unconscious pressure and the social influences.

Freud also claims that; a dream that is not interpreted is like a letter that is not opened and what the surrealist wanted to do in their artworks was trying to open this letter, while creating dream-like scenes and objects. Therefore surrealists create; illogical, unnatural and unexpected combinations which are also referred as juxtapositions. The film contains many juxtapositions as well. For example, when the man is chasing the woman and the woman resists him, he drags two grand pianos containing dead and rotting donkeys, the tablets of the Ten Commandments, and two live priests (artandpopularculture.com). This combination is representing the social pressure upon man and the influences on individuals acts. Again, the juxtaposition of the palm and ants is standing for the French phrase ants in the palms, which means someones motivation to kill, or the sexual desire. Salvador Dali also uses this combination in many of his paintings. In Dalis paintings, ants usually suggest putrefaction and decay. Also, the use of the fly is another symbol which has also been used by Dali, as a symbol of bearer of pestilence and evil. Both ants and the fly is linked with the

unconscious motives of humankind and the nature of man; linking life and death, and good and bad. The film is influenced by symbols, which back up the juxtapositions created.

The razor scene may also be evaluated as juxtaposition, or as a symbol, where the vision and the sense of seeing of the woman are restricted by man. It also refers to the relationship between women and art; where most of the artists are men and women are objects of desire. For surrealists, woman is the focus of the dreams and the influence for sexual behavior. The woman in the film is also depicted as an object, which the man wants to use in order to satisfy his desires.

Due to the Un chien andalou containing the aims of disorienting and shocking the expectations, to undo conceptions of order and reality, the reveal of unconscious, to speak from the position of the irrational; and its content being based on unexpected juxtapositions, woman as an object of desire, and Freudian philosophy; the film can be labeled as a surrealist work of Buuel and Dali.