The short film Un Chien Andalou is a silent, bizarre film that does not follow traditional form or logic. The chronology of the film is also unusual, creating a mass confusion within the audience. Watching this film, I could not pinpoint the plot, which was most likely the filmmaker’s intention. As we see books turn into guns, mouths completely (and randomly) disappear, hands covered in ants, and illogical changes in settings, the film has a dreamlike quality. With these themes, this film accurately represents surrealism as described in Andre Breton’s Manifesto on Surrealism. The film seems to challenge all rational thought by getting rid of any logical thought or realism. Breton defines surrealism as free-flowing thought with the absence of any control exercised by reason. Similarly, the film breaks away from the constraints of reason and thought to provide us with a visual stream of consciousness.
Ballet Mecanique embodies key themes found in the futurist and dada movements. Throughout the film, there is a constant repetition of movements. The reappearance of spinning gears can symbolize concepts of the future (innovation). Also, these moving objects can represent the world in motion and change. This film seems to embrace technological advancement. In addition to content, this film lacks traditional form, which reminds me of the Dada movement. The video clips presented in this film are random and unconnected. There is no plot to this film, which must have confused the audience of its time. Because I am familiar with traditional story form, this video’s unrelated clips and loud soundtrack created a sense of uneasiness. I believe that the filmmaker is bringing attention to this feeling of unease and is ultimately trying to have the audience break away from established beliefs that film must follow certain forms or have meaning. In my opinion, this film was created with the intention of challenging film (a form of art) rather than enjoyment. The filmmaker is constantly distorting images. A woman’s lips are first shown as upright (which is normal and correct), then flipped upside-down. This unusual view can represent a new alternative observation of the world.
Great reading of the films. I like your emphasis on the ‘free-flowing’ nature of the first. As we discussed in class, this is a particularly important component of both Dada and Surrealism. We see this in Automatic Writing (for the Surrealists especially) and in the spontaneous poetry that Tristan Tzara created (by picking out random words from a newspaper and stringing them together). You correctly link this with a general tendency to loosen our creations from the constraints of Reason. Reason, as many of these thinkers saw, led to much of the methods of mass destruction and murder during the first World War: mustard gas, airplanes, tanks, bombs, etc. All that which was supposed to help us (transportation, pesticide to increase food production) has turned against us and killed us en masse. So how do we free ourselves from this perverse ‘logic’ and this murderous Reason? Excellent work. 5/5