Un Chien Andalou means “an Andalusian dog,” though the much-studied 1929 short film of that title contains no dogs at all, from Andalusia or anywhere else. In fact, it alludes to a Spanish expression about how the howling of an Andalusian signals that someone has died. And indeed, there is death in Un Chien Andalou, as well as sex, albeit death and sex as processed through the unconscious minds of the young filmmaker Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí, whose collaboration on this enduringly strange movie did much to make their names. Two of its memorable images — among sixteen straight minutes of memorable images — came straight from their dreams: a hand crawling with ants, and a razor blade slicing the moon as if it were an eye.
“Less than two minutes into the picture, a man — played by the stocky, unmissable figure of Buñuel himself — stands on a balcony, gazing wolfishly at the moon,” writes New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane. “Cut to the face of a woman. Cut back to the moon; a thin slice of cloud drifts across its face. Cut to an eye; a razor blade knifes neatly and without hesitation across the eyeball, whose contents well and spill like an outsized tear. Cut. At this point, if you are of a nervous disposition, you faint.”
Buñuel himself told Dalí that the sequence made him sick, though he also publicly described Un Chien Andalou as “a desperate and passionate appeal to murder.” Allergic to the direct incorporation of politics into art, he preferred to use the techniques of Surrealism to advocate for the destruction of society itself.
Yet as their careers went on, Buñuel and Dalí eventually occupied respected positions in society. Curious! Though Buñuel would keep recommitting to the power of absurdity throughout his filmography (not least in the seventies with his final trilogy, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, and That Obscure Object of Desire), it is Un Chien Andalou that holds the title of one of the most important works in the history of cinema, recognized even by those who’ve never seen it, some of whom no doubt suspect they couldn’t bear to. But if they can summon the will, they’ll find the film’s parade of unsettlingly coherent incoherence is more accessible than ever, since it has now fallen into the public domain, according to the Internet Archive. Its sense of humor may surprise them, but so too may the undiminished vividness of its flashes of sex and death, which have always been standbys of cinema — and of dreams.
Related content:
Two Vintage Films by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel: Un Chien Andalou and L’Age d’Or
Watch Luis Buñuel’s Surreal Travel Documentary A Land Without Bread (1933)
Salvador Dalí Goes to Hollywood & Creates a Wild Dream Sequence for Alfred Hitchcock
David Lynch Presents the History of Surrealist Film (1987)
Filmmaker Luis Buñuel Shows How to Make the Perfect Dry Martini
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. He’s the author of the newsletter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Summarizing Korea) and Korean Newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
