There’s no specific definition of Dadaism. Dada could be multiple things. The idea of Dadaists is that there’s not supposed to be standard, and they try to seek the true reality by going against the traditional culture and the traditional aesthetic form. This is similar to the main goal of Andre Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism, which tries to free people’s mind from the past and from everyday reality to arrive at truths that has never known.

The film “Ballet Mecanique” is a typical Dadaism work. Even though there are just 16 minutes, there are 300 plus shots, which consist of non-logic pictures or videos, such as a cap, white circle or triangle, and woman’s smile, etc. We could hardly to tell what the film is talking about, because it didn’t describe a logical story. However, we can conclude there are two main types of stuff shown in the film: objects and machines. Although there’s no logic in this film, it can clearly express its topic and goal. Through the motion of objects and machines, the director obscurely shows the relationship between human and the machine world through the artistic technique of Dadaism.

Another film is “Le Chien Andalou”, which is a surrealism film. It seems to have plots, but there’s no connection between each other. Also, the images in the film are weird. For example, a man wants to hug the woman, but the man is tied down by a string linked a pumpkin. Even though I can’t really get the meaning of the film, through the frantic images in the film, I can feel the sense of depress. And precisely because this is a silence film, the feeling of despair is much stronger.

Comparing the two films, we can see that non-logic and unreasonable are the features for both films. However, audience can actually feel what the director wants to say through the film.