Red Mercury Labs

Un Chien Andalou - 1929 - Directed by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali

This is a film that I assume most film and arts students know very well. It’s the kind of film you would see projected in a small college screening room because you heard it was important, and then a film you would watch every chance you got thereafter to see if there was some meaning in there somewhere. It is a surrealist film, so by definition there is no meaning - the filmmakers worked hard to make sure that there was no logic, story, or sense to the movie. The first time through it is completely confusing, but it gets better the more times you watch it, perhaps because you get used to the idea that you need not expend any energy trying to make sense of it at all.

It’s the kind of film you need some sort of motivation to see. Perhaps it’s the historical significance, the intriguing imagery, or the novelty of a film that was made when there were no rules or expectations in filmmaking. Perhaps the directors, surrealist director Luis Buñuel and surrealist painter Salvador Dali, are the motivation - I mean, aren’t you just a little bit curious what these guys would come up with for their first film? For me, I had to see it just because it seemed to be one of those things that should be experienced during life here on earth.

I came across this film via completely convoluted route. I am a fan of the Pixies, and in one of their songs, Black Francis repeatedly shouts that he is “Un Chien Andalusia”. So one day while this song was playing at Red Mercury Headquarters, I googled the phrase, wondering just what the hell a Chien Andalusia was. The search turned up an interview where Black Francis mentions having watched Un Chien Andalou. He decided to write a song about it. “Un Chien Andalou” didn’t sound good enough in the song, so he just changed it to “Chien Andalusia.”

Of course, this wasn’t the answer I was looking for - that the catchy phrase I had been shouting along with all this time was pretty much meaningless - but then again it is appropriate given the senselessness of the film.

The DVD version of the movie is put together by Transflux Films and was released at the end of 2004. The film was originally silent, and Buñuel would play phonographs behind the screen to provide a bit of a soundtrack. The DVD includes music that was specified by Buñuel. The music doesn’t completely fit with what’s happening, because the music wasn’t written for the film. At first this seems cheesy and low-budget, but after a while it kind of makes sense, relative to the rest of the film - that is, it makes no sense, but then that’s the point.

The film itself is surprisingly short at 17 minutes. Thus, if you have an evening to watch the film, you can watch it multiple times easily. There is a scene or two in the movie that is still shocking even today. The lyrics in the Pixies song that introduced me to the movie include the line “slicing up eyeballs” - and the opening scene of Un Chien Andalou delivers. There are strange ideas, intriguing images, and quite a bit of humor packed into the 17 minutes.

Perhaps the best part of the Transflux DVD is the two-part interview with Buñuel’s son, Juan-Luis. He talks about his father’s life, the surrealists, Dali and Buñuel’s friends and some of the things that they did for fun. There’s a great story of them having a female friend dress up like a prostitute and get on a trolly, then one of the two of them would get on at the next stop dressed as a priest and start molesting her, then another one of them dressed as a cop would hop on and intervene… all as a bit of public performance art to shock the people who happened to be riding the trolley. There’s also a great story about an incident at Charlie Chaplain’s holiday dinner, the kind of thing that would make anyone kick Buñuel out of their house (which is what Chaplain did). It’s also fascinating to hear about the first projection of the film, attended by Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and whatever other prominent artists happened to be in France at the time. It’s little facts like this that give the film its enduring mystique in certain circles.

Juan-Luis talks about some of the scenes in the movie, how they were done, and best of all, he discusses the symbolism in the movie - rather, that there is none! It makes the movie so much more enjoyable and amusing to know that the surrealist approach to this movie was to avoid any symbolism or meaning at all. Juan-Luis gives a very believable description of the symbolism that has been attributed to one of the scenes in the film, and then lets us all breath a sigh of relief as he tells us that it’s all wrong, the lack of symbolism is baked into the cake.

That lets me off the hook as well, as I don’t need to make any sense of it. The imagery in the movie is intriguing and interesting. The story behind the men is probably even more interesting. Juan-Luis talking about his dad, and then talking about what would shock moviegoers today, is fascinating, entertaining, and funny.

On the DVD, you can watch the film with a voice-over by surrealist expert Stephen Barber. For most of the voice-over, he spares us any analysis of the symbolism of the images (again, there is none), but at some point he runs out of things to talk about and starts to discuss the deep importance of sex and death in the imagery. Yes, there is some sexiness and some death, but there are also ants crawling out of a hand and a man dragging pianos draped with dead donkeys. Barber does have a handful of interesting things to say, but it might have been better if he had been interviewed instead of made to do a voice-over running commentary.

It is a historically significant film, it’s got some enduring imagery that is fun to watch, it’s a great example of art for art’s sake, and hey, it’s only 17 minutes long. You never know when you’ll find yourself at a cocktail party surrounded by film students, and with a small investment of time, you’ll be able to say, yeah, I’ve seen Un Chien Andalou!

Available via Netflix and anywhere totally obscure DVDs are sold.