something of a joke topic
so good movie...wait for it...but it didn't make sense
and as I knew that going into the movie I actually tried to assign meaning to its "logic"
seriously though why does this movie have in its' recommends- Salo
did I miss something vitally important seems to me they might as well recommend certain scenes of the saw series
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It's just not a "get it" film. It is what it is.
"Saw" is junk, Un Chien is ground breaking.
Well, DUH!!!!! It's not supposed to make sense!!!! It's meant to shock and unsettle. The fact that your looking for plot or reason in this film just shows that your the target audience that Bunuel and Salvador Dali were trying to screw with.
shareThe movie is a piece of surrealistic art. Do some research on surrealism and you should understand this movie more. The pace of, and reaction incited by the imagery is what the movie is about. The fact that it stands as one of the first "gore" films makes it get those recommendations you mentioned.
The Day Of The Dead
I saw this in college and had a similar reaction to it. Tried to assign meaning and symbolism to every image and just ended up frustrated. Watched it again tonight, a few years down the road, and it makes a lot more sense to me now...in a way.
This time around, what stood out to me most was the fragmentation of it all. The overall question seemed to be: "Is the whole the sum of its parts?" The film experimented with switching removing and splicing (quite literally!) body parts, but it did something similar to genres of art. What was it that we were feeling as we were watching? Well, estrangement, I think. I think that the film seeks to create an isolated and estranged audience, perhaps to call into question the relationship that a viewer has with an artist. (What, you expected a surrealist to give you something?! :) But further, I think that part of the modern viewers' experience (I can't speak to the experience of a contemporary viewer!) is the struggle to name the the type of film. Is it a romance? A horror film? A drama? A comedy? I think that an element of the art is that it has taken apart each of these genres and thrown the pieces together in a way that makes us question the validity or realism of any story ever really fitting within the lines of a comedy or a romance. (For example, we see the couple walking on the beach at the end in an odd, sardonic twist on the "happily ever after" concept).
if you don't get it, don't worry, there's nothing to get, it's just a bunch of weird things put together, it's like a weird painting that doesnt make any sense but is still cool just because of how weird it is
share It's definitely a bunch of weird things put together, but does still make some sense; it's just very subtle. I had to think about the movie for about a week and a half after I saw it to put some connections together, I also did some reading and researching about it. Although some surrealist works, like Cocteau's film, are not about understanding everything, I do believe that there was some stuff in Un Chien to understand. I believe that the slicing of the eye was a metaphor for film, the eye is what sees the film, and the razor is cutting it; in other words, the slicing of the eye is a way to show editing film. The symbolic editing film and vision along with spectatorship is a clear reference to the film process and the role of film, to be watched by spectators. We watch films, which is shown by the eye and the razor cutting it.
Spectatorship is a reoccurring element in this movie, reappearing in many scenes. For example, in the balcony scene, a woman is trying to pick up a severed hand with a stick while she is surrounded by a large crowd; this is spectatorship. While this is going on, the woman is not only being watched by the crowd, but also by the people standing in the balcony.
The central theme that I gathered from the eye slicing scene and from the abundant spectatorship was that a lot of film is what we live. We watch movies that sometimes depict tings that we deal with everyday (the everyday aspect is not necessarily pertaining to An Andalusion Dog) but want to watch other people deal with in films.
while it is fun to try to come up with meanings to the various scenes of the movie, there is literally no meaning to any of it, when Bunuel and Dali were making the film, their goal was to make the strangest film possible, so what they would do was they would pitch random ideas trying to come up with the weirdest things possible, so how it would go would be something like this...
"There's a girl"
"Not weird enough"
"There's a girl who's scared"
"Better, what is she scared of?"
"A Man"
"Not good"
"A Man dragging a piano"
"Good"
"And there's a lamp on the piano"
"Not good"
"There's a dead donkey on the piano"
"Good"
So no symbolism or reasoning or anything was behind the images in un chien andalou, just plain desire to be weird, and apparently before Bunuel died he would comment on how funny all the random explanations were for the various scenes of the movie, there's a pretty good interview on the dvd with Bunuel's son where he goes over everything in case you wanted to check it out
I Enjoyed the 16 minutes watching this film...
getting to see Dali was a treat as well for those very few moments.
Rasha your explanation is valid and makes sense. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to this movie at all.
Bunuel & Dali wanted to challenge the audience and make something creative and extreme.
What I gathered was a series of emotions & bi-polar like tendencies with all the characters and events. It was just leading up to things like curiosity, hate, anger, lust, etc.... list goes on and on.
It is very well done for it's time, and for it's creativity. I wish people would just take it for what it is=
ART
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The filmmakers were at pains - til their dying days - to say that the film had no meaning.
None.
They set out deliberately to make a film that meant absolutely NOTHING.
People have always had a hard time accepting that.
What I like about the movie is that it just is. You can spend your whole life trying put some meaning into it. Some of the explanations can even be justified. But nobody will ever be able to say that he/she has fully comprehended the movie.
PS: There's no dog in An andalausian Dog!
I liked it, but I really don't know why is this short film so popular...
shareIt was Salvador Dali's first film, it was one of the most popular if not the most popular surrealist films of the avant-garde movement of the 1920s, and according to Roger Ebert anway, it was the inspiration for low budget independent films, so it's got some stuff going for it
shareIn spite of varying interpretations made since the film originated, Buñuel made clear throughout 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". Moreover, he stated that, "Nothing, in the film, symbolizes anything. The only method of investigation of the symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_chien_andalou#Analysis
All it is is like a dream that we've all had that makes no sense but it just images. You can't take all forms of art as literal. Dreams can be disturbing and dis jointed. Bunuel is a master at imagery.
shareThanks for all the replys.
Ebert lists this as TOP 10 HORROR movies
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/strange-3/-nbsp-nbsp-watch-cocteau.htm l
I wasn't actually asking for the meaning behind the imagery. It seems I trolled you when I wasn't trying to do that. I was trying to make a little joke and complain about the fact that IMDB has the WORST similar movies set up I have ever seen.
quote
something of a joke topic
so good movie...wait for it...but it didn't make sense
and as I knew that going into the movie I actually tried to assign meaning to its "logic"
seriously though why does this movie have in its' recommends- Salo
did I miss something vitally important seems to me they might as well recommend certain scenes of the saw series
end quote
Sorry if my topic was misleading, and thanks for the replies. My hope in the IMDB message boards was renewed by the eloquence in them. Most messages I see tend to be maore booobs n boom boom followed by grammer nazis saying put a period at the end, (probably why I tend to lurk)
PM me if you want a prompt reply.IMDB emails if there're posts in ANY thread I've EVER replied...
Bunuel is also something of a mischief maker. He once said something to the effect that he was always keen to read reviews of his films so that he could learn from the critics the real meaning of his work.
For my own part I think we see scenes from the subconscious, either as dreams or fantasies, or even unfettered works of art. There is powerful eroticism at it's heart, made more so by representing sexual desire, or anxiety, symbolically. I'm also struck by the prophetic elements; film was a relatively new medium and Bunuel and Dali speculate it's potential for explicit violent imagery and subversion. This pre-dates the works of Michael Powell and Michael Haneke by appearing to make an early ironic comment on the film making process with reference to audience complicity.
Those who require conventional narrative from their choice of cinema will have little if any time for Un Chein Andalou. Non appreciation of surrealism or experimentalism in cinema is not a indicative of a lack in taste or intelligence, but rather an approach informed by film watching experience. However it's always worth pointing out that many films seen as innovative or ground breaking in style or technical development are to a greater or lesser extent continuing the pioneering leaps of imagination which begin with the likes of Un Chein Andalou.
"I'm staring at the abyss.I don't like the look of the abyss"