An Andalusian Dog, Luis Buñuel, 1929

 AN ANDALUSIAN DOG

Identification

Year: 1929
Directed by: Luis Buñuel
Written by: Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel
Actors:

• Simone Mareuil (young girl)
• Pierre Batchef (young man and second young man)
• Luis Buñuel (man in prologue)
• Salvador Dalí (seminarist and man on beach)

Genre: silent surrealist short film

Content anaysis

There is no real structure or argument in An Andalusian Dog. The various scenes are not logically connected to each other. Therefore, it does not make sense to interprete the film as a whole, but only to have a closer look at some of the scenes and images. Some of the most inportant scenes are:

• The cut eye: a man cuts a woman's eye. An initial shock which is preserved for the whole course of the film. This scene is a icon of surrealism and it could be interpreted as a negation of the visual and the rational.

• The priests pulled by the cyclist: the scene where the cyclist pulls the carpet with the pianos, the donkeys and the priests serves to illustrate the heavy weight of education and the bourgeoisie

• Ants coming out of a hand: typical dalinian image in his painting and writing (Dalí was afraid of ants)

I liked the film because it was so weird that I was attentive all the time during the film.

Technical analysis:

I liked the actors work. The film hasn't any conversation, and I would like it to have to understand better what is happening in the scenes. The movie wasn't too fast but neither slow. I think the music it's a very inportant element in the film because there's not any conversation. In general a lot of scenes were not realist because it's a surrealist film an the final purpose is not to have any sense.

Conclusion:

I've known a well-known short film that before I didn't even hear i'ts tittle. I think that the film it's in the given list because of its importance on the cinema world.



The story pattern:

1.-YOU: There is a woman and a man
2.-NEED: Make new clothes for the man
4.-SEARCH: There's a hand in the middle of the street
6.-TAKE: Another woman was hitten by a car
7.-RETURN: The woman leave the man alone
8.-CHANGE: The woman goes with another man