Un Chien Andalou is a film that reflects on dreams and the subconscious, dreams show us what we are really thinking and the protagonist in Un Chien Andalou (either the girl or the main man, I have not decided yet) shows us their thoughts, worries and deepest thoughts/desires and then Bunuel exposes them on screen.
Moments which particularly stand out to me and probably the majority of audiences are the eye slitting scene, this scene builds up, we see the male sharpening the knife and then cutting his finger, we wonder what he'll do, we have a shot of the moon which then matches the shot of the woman's eye, a close up of the cut, its all extremely shocking, in class there were gasps and sounds of disgust. We talked about what this symbolises, does it symbolise the woman cutting into herself, her inner self, cutting into her subconscious, a title card says 8 years later, but her eye is fine, are we now in her dream? The film is completely up for interpretation, maybe the knife symbolises something else, her worst nightmare perhaps, or something she is remembering. Its interesting to see her staying so calm, not struggling, she doesn't even blink. I love how when watching the film everybody in the audience is asking the same questions, mainly, What is going on here?!
The other scene of interest is the man who pulls the pianos, not just pianos but what looks like the 10 commandments written on stone and two religious men followed by 2 dead horses! Again all these things are up for interpretation, he's pulling them over to the women he wishes to sleep with (we assume after he has groped her) maybe the things are pullings against him, say religion is telling him not to rape this woman, and the pianos symbolise his class, would a middle-class man rape a women. Alternatively it could be interpreted that he has worked his whole life, the horses are dead, he should be allowed to be with the woman. The religion could be saying that he has a right to the women, as in the bible/ other religious texts a woman is the property of man, and its her duty to sleep with him.
The mans hands, ants coming out of them means his desire to kill, I found a quote on IMDB.com
"The French phrase "ants in the palms," (which means that someone is "itching" to kill) is shown literally."
After watching the film the 'ants in the palms' gives the film another interpretation, does the man want to kill the woman?
Is the film even about the man at all, or more about the woman choosing between two guys? The films editing comes to mind when reviewing the scene where the woman sticks her tongue out at the man and leaves him on the second story room to go to the beach. She's now with a new man, only to end up dead by spring. We are left here with the classic 'fin' ending, shocked.
I started thinking about my own dreams and what happens in my dreams, in dreams we accept what is going on, no matter how bazar and go along with it. Bunuel expects us to do the same and after a couple more viewing perhaps we will.
Un Chien Andalou (even the title doesn't make sense) 1928
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