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THE REVIEW
"Un Chien Andalou" is the film born during the period of French surrealism, in that glorious 1929, when Bunuel and Dalí brought to life what would become the masterpiece of avant-garde cinema: a work that in just sixteen minutes encompasses the wildest and most insane emotions that the seventh art has ever been able to offer in its blooming years.
A continuous succession of macabre and distressing images, imbued with necrophiliac poetry, without an apparent reason: it feels like witnessing a neurotic extrasensory dreamlike experience.
It all begins with an eye (compared to the full moon) slit by a perfectly horizontal razor: the incredible act of slitting the viewer's eye to force them, even at the cost of suffering and physical pain, to see everything they have never seen, even the most disturbing and profound reality. A real shocking sequence that gave rise to gore in cinema, which will not always take deep and reflective roots like that of this film, which is a true cinematic delirium, where temporal data only serve to confuse and make everything even more delirious and extreme.
The erotic drive of a man, the anticipation of being touched by the woman (who will, however, reject the impulsive act of the beloved). The memories of the past and finally a walk by the sea, with almost triumphant love: they are swallowed by the sand, so close, but unable to touch each other, to make love.
In the middle? A severed hand devoured by ants and a piano (to which two priests, one of whom is Dalí, are tied) on which lie two dead donkeys eaten by worms (a critique against sex condemned by the Church).
Everything is photographed in a dirty, very dirty and dated black and white, making these sixteen minutes more and more agonizing: extreme images with an incredibly fierce impact, which were offensive in an educated era, not yet accustomed to the phenomenon of surrealist and Dadaist cinema.
A little masterpiece.
You will be captivated.
Let yourself be slit.
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Summary by Bot
Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 surrealist film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, offering 16 minutes of provocative and disturbing avant-garde imagery. The film challenges viewers with shocking and symbolic sequences, such as the iconic eye-slitting scene. Rich in macabre poetry and surreal symbolism, it remains a groundbreaking milestone in cinema history. Its raw and unsettling black and white visuals captivate and defy conventional narrative.
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel (1900–1983) was a Spanish film director and a key figure in surrealist cinema, known for satirical, often anticlerical films that criticize bourgeois society.12 Reviews
Other reviews
By sexyajax
The film lasts about 15 minutes and is a waking nightmare.
The slit [of the eye] represents the penetration beyond all the frontiers of the Soul.
By Talkin' Meat
The razor slicing the pupil evokes a total vision of unheard-of things, balancing brutal pain with cathartic symbolism.
The tango frames the woman’s attempted escape and the man’s continual approaches, as if the rape were moving to the rhythm of dance.
