Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
A brilliant film that helped define a genre
It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
View MoreA bit overrated, but still an amazing film
People do not know how to deal with meaninglessness because they spend their entire lives looking for truths that guide them. It is desperate when they encounter something clearly meaningless that they can not control. But .... Life, in itself, boils down to that, does not it?
View More...but her work pales in comparison with this film. It is one of the most surreal of all surrealist films, and is one you won't forget. Deren's work I would normally write an analysis for, but this film isn't entirely explainable. I suppose if I thought about it...but then again, maybe it wasn't Bunuel's intent for people to think about this. In fact, according to what I've read, Bunuel and Dali were actually hoping to cause riots with this film--thinking that maybe, just maybe, a man randomly slicing a woman's eye with a knife would be gruesome and horrid enough to get people's attention. That it certainly did, but nonetheless, despite their wishes, this response that they were hoping for didn't come (even though they even threw in some porn, for the heck of it).The most famous image in this film that is the most remembered today is the eyeball slicing. It comes at the very beginning of the movie and there it has no connection whatsoever to the rest of the movie. I suppose it was meant as an attention getter more than anything else. In the rest of the movie, there are at least different characters, although none of it actually makes sense.Bunuel wasn't mad as the other reviewer said. Obviously, they made it entirely for the purpose of being artistic. After watching this, you'll probably start thinking he was a film directer version of Vincent van Gogh. However, part of it was Dali, who really made this film what it turned out as in the end. Dali was a surreal artist. I'll bet you he was like "hey, Bunuel. I've got me an idea. How about we try to create a scandal!! We could make a film so stupid and weird people will faint! We could have a woman's eye get cut up, a hand in the middle of a street, etc. I can hear the audience dropping already." Surrealism was Dali's best talent--this film is proof.And even if you don't like this film, you gotta give credit to them--Maya Deren certainly got inspiration from this. Watch her "Meshes of the Afternoon" and you'll see why I say this. And, as for the hidden story, I can only guess it's about a woman who likes a man--but only certain traits of him. That at least explains the different versions of him that appear throughout the film. Maybe it's kind of a variation on "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". Who knows? Well, let's not try to make TOO much sense of it! Hahahaha.
View MoreI think it was Thomas De Quincey who said that if a farmer took opium he would dream of cabbages and cows. To dream splendidly you need a splendid imagination. Fortunately Bunuel had that in spades and in Un Chien Andalou the master invites us into his dreams and it is an experience one never forgets.Probably the greatest director of all Bunuel starts his cinema career in the fashion he intends to follow for the rest of his life. This film contains within it the seeds of all his masterpieces to come: Los Olvidados, Nazarin, Viridiana, The Exterminating Angel, Diary of a Chambermaid, Simon of the Desert, Belle de Jour, The Milky Way, Tristana, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, That Obscure Object of Desire, all have their roots in this 20-minute film. Bunuel is announcing to the world the birth of a cinematic god. Forget Dali's contribution, it was insignificant, this is pure Bunuel.If you have any pretensions at all to being a connoisseur of the cinema you must see this film. Nobody can claim to know the movies unless they have seen this. It is quite simply the greatest short film ever made.Oh yes, the plot. The plot is human life itself. 10/10 although once again the IMDb rating system comes up short. The Godfather may be a 10, Goodfellas a 10, The Shawshank Redemption a 10, Pulp Fiction a 10, but the gap between those movies and An Andalusian Dog is the width of the universe itself. See it or your life will have been wasted.
View MoreLuis Bunuel's and Salvador Dali's surrealistic 'An Andalusian Dog' was their first and it is called the seminal surrealist film. The film has no plot, or at least in the conventional sense, and is built up like a dream sequence with seemingly random scenes. But it's not meant to be a dream, it's just a different world (or a parallel universe if one wishes). Bunuel and Dali didn't meant to contrive a plot that could make sense. Even the title was intended to make any sense.This film has also given us one of the most memorable and haunting scenes in the history of the cinema - slicing a woman's eyeball with shaving knife. And this horrifying image probably has brought many people to see this surrealistic gem.This film is notable also because it was one of the first real independent film that was made without any studio support on a shoestring budget. 'An Andalusian Dog' has influenced many independent filmmakers throughout history. An of course it has been influence to many surrealist artist and even for a Sex Pistols.Probably everyone who are half interested about film in general will find this film one day.
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