Post 9

Un Chien Andalou presents its viewers with a disconcerting take on the traditional format of a film. It disconnects itself from any successive coherent narrative arrangement, with no links between successive scenes. It leaves the opportunity for any interpretation to be drawn from the images shown and every single scene seems to be random and unconcerned with any other. Throughout the film, Bunuel, the director, repeats images in situations where they shouldn't necessarily be added, or don't really make sense, which adds to the already confusing undertone of the film and enhances the off-putting nature inherent in the film. Bunuel worked with Dali on this film, both employing a Surrealist take on film-making with a psychoanalytical undertone brought on by Freud's theories, which the Surrealists incorporated in their ideology of their art forms. The Surrealists were extremely interested in the unconscious as a way to escape reality and subvert the limitations imposed on people by a rational, civilized world where the conscious realm of the mind rules. The surrealists favored Freud's theory of dreams, the unconscious state, the conscious state, the Id, the ego, and the super-ego, incorporating facets of his theories into their own works. Freud postulated a sharp divide between reality and dreams with his concecpts of condensation and displacement, which were both widely used in surrealism. Freud studied dreams for uncovering problems brought on during the awakened state. He understood dream reality to be a fragmented story with many levels and perspectives of interpretation, and this is showcased in Un Chien Andalou on a number of levels. The film intentionally distorts reality but establishes a picture that is mostly realistic in its deliverance. It blurs the distinction between the reality and the dream, making the viewer very confused as to what exactly is going on and how to make sense of these fragmented images that are seemingly incompatible in the sense of a rational narrative. Bunuel conveys surreal images, projecting scenes that are made up of both external experiences and inner life experiences, which are reminiscent of a dream-like state. The opening scene in the film perfectly exemplifies this fusion between Freud's ideas regarding dreams and life functioning in an altered, dream-like state of unconsciousness, with the moon in the sky being quickly replaced by a close-up, disturbing shot of an eyeball being sliced. This automatically sets the viewer up for what they are to expect through the rest of the 17-minute film, a combination of unrelated images repeated throughout the film, which have no apparent meaning or representative substance. The eye ball cutting sequence which opens the film produces a state of free association for the viewer, allowing the viewer to feel a number of things regarding the images placed before them. The viewer is transported into a dream-like state of mind where there is no real explanation for what they are seeing, just a random selection of images and experiences that they can draw multiple interpretations from. 

The characters and props make the film even more of a confusing dream-like experience, with the irrational montage, which facilitates the negation of reality, forcing the viewer to rely on emotion and the impact of the unconscious to carry them through the rest of the film. The viewer has to negotiate with the unconsciousness in order to make sense of the images placed before them. The young man in the film seems to be fighting his own unconscious urges for the young woman as he strains against the combined weight of a piano, a donkey, and two priests, which can be viewed as a representation of his own personal struggles with reality and the world outside as well as his struggles with his unconscious state of mind and his super-ego.