After watching the two short films Un Chien Andalou and Ballet Mecanique, I can say that I was thoroughly impressed with the effects that they had on my friends and me (my friends wanted to watch the films too). Compared to the many “scary” movies (I’m being generous when I say they’re “scary”) currently being watched, watching these two short films gave us the most chills. From beginning to the end of watching the films, I tried to rationalize how the scenes were related to each other. Unsuccessfully, I realized that the scenes were kinda random and held their own meaning. Although, the theme of the scenes became more clear when I thought back to the Surrealist manifesto. The Surrelist manifesto relates, because it’s about releasing one from “everyday reality” to see another “reality” that holds some truth. For instance, in the film Ballet Mechanique, there were many scenes that had a “logical place” in society, such a woman swinging, hats, numbers, shapes, etc. When put together in a different order and various viewpoints, the scenes seem almost unreal, yet those things happening are actually happening.

The film Un Chien Andalou was able to capture the theme of the Creationist manifesto because it used a lot of weird scenes and random sequences. It felt like an entirely different society, which falls in the Creationist theories, because that society existed as a phenomenon in itself and was incomparable to anything else. For instance, for the time period, it was strange to find a man riding on the bicycle dressed as a girl. Yet, there were no comments in the film made about the man to indicate that the man was out of place in their society. Another example would be, how the officer and the woman used a similar looking box for separate reasons. The officer used the box to keep a bloody hand, while the woman used it to keep a tie. The box was defined by the owner of it, and could therefore symbolize the possible realms that someone could create.

Also, the dadaist theme could be found in Un Chien Andalou, which was when the man and the woman walked into the sunset, and then died. It shows how insignificant the love of a man and woman, and that it’s just a made up value. Walking into the sunset or dying, there is no correct way for what should happen to the man and woman.