Line #26 Film/UnChienAndalou


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4	''Un Chien Andalou'' is a 1929 MindScrew short silent film made by Creator/LuisBunuel and Creator/SalvadorDali. It's the TropeMaker for cinematic EyeScream, a milestone on surrealist cinema. The plot — it's indescribable at best.
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6	The title translates to ''An Andalusian Dog'', which if anything just makes it more confusing (Dalí's friend Lorca was Andalusian, and they had a falling-out around the production of this film, so the title might have been a TakeThat at Lorca. Buñuel, however, denied this).
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8	Compare ''Film/LAgeDOr'', the second film Bunuel and Dali made together, which is only a little less weird.
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10	The film is a challenge to the developing world of film theory, specifically the KuleshovEffect. Kuleshov found that people will create meaning from unrelated scenes simply because they're placed in a sequence (soup in a bowl, a man, a girl in a coffin, the man, a woman on a chaise, the man). Dali and Bunuel wanted to produce a film that couldn't possibly be construed as having any meaning, with every scene being as disconnected as possible from everything around it. Even the title, "An Andalusian Dog" is completely unrelated to anything in the film, as there are no dogs, Andalusian or otherwise.
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13	!!''Un Chien Andalou'' provides examples of the following tropes:
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15	* AmbiguousGender: The person in the street who gets hit by a car, who may be a {{bifauxnen}} woman, a mythical androgyne dream archetype or a very feminine guy (played by a pretty, lipstick-wearing woman).
16	* AttemptedRape: Foiled by the would-be assailant suddenly picking up two ropes and [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext dragging two grand pianos with dead donkeys and bewildered priests attached to them]] across the room towards the cornered woman. He is slowed down sufficiently that she can escape. While [[OffscreenTeleportation he (or perhaps another version of him) is lying on the bed in the next room]], the "plot" moves in a different direction at this point.
17	* BodyHorror:
18	** Oh look! There are ants coming out of a hole in my hand!
19	** Not to mention the guy's mouth disappearing and being replaced by a hairy armpit.
20	** A woman gets her eye sliced open with a straight razor (it's actually a cow's eye in a close-up).
21	* CreatorCameo:
22	** That's Creator/SalvadorDali dressed as a priest, being dragged along the ground where a piano used to be.
23	** Creator/LuisBunuel is the man with [[EyeScream the razor]].
24	* DeadHandShot: And the soon-to-be-made-roadkill androgyne is poking it with a long thin stick as a crowd gathers.
25	* EyeScream: The opening scene is one of the oldest and most infamous cinematic examples. They used a dead calf's head and heavy lighting to try to obscure the hairs on the face.
26	* GainaxEnding: And beginning, and middle. Not too surprising, considering that the rest of the film follows a dream-like logic at best.
27	* IdenticalGrandson: The father and son (assuming that's what they are supposed to be) are both played by the same actor.
28	* InterplayOfSexAndViolence: After the man and the woman see the person in the street hit by a car, the man gets aroused, and starts pawing at the woman's breasts -- which are transformed into buttocks.
29	* LeFilmArtistique: Hey, would you like to watch a movie where a guy slices a lady's eyeball open and another guy drags around two grand pianos with dead donkeys on top of them? Of course you would!
30	* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: The male protagonist (if that's even what he is,) sports a gaping wound in the palm of his right hand that is [[BodyHorror infested with a swarm of ants.]] Although this injury fascinates him to no end, it neither alarms nor impairs him in any way.
31	* MatchCut:
32	** The infamous eye slicing is matched up with a shot of a thin cloud passing in front of the moon.
33	** There's the hairy underarm shot that fades into a shot of a sea urchin which then fades into an overhead shot of the androgynous person poking the severed hand.
34	* MindScrew: Quite intentionally, as the film follows the logic of a strange, sometimes erotic, sometimes horrifying dream. According to Buñuel: "No idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted" throughout the film.
35	* NonAppearingTitle: There is no dog seen in the entire movie. Especially not from Andalusia!
36	* RandomEventsPlot: Probably the UrExample in film history.
37	* RefugeInAudacity: This entire movie is [[IntendedAudienceReaction meant to confuse, horrify and outrage viewers]]. The infamous eye slicing scene is very graphic for the time.
38	* SmashCut: used throughout the film, but most notably in the infamous eye scene. WordOfGod from Buñuel explains that the close-up portion of the sequence used the head of a dead calf, with a combination of lighting, bleaching of the skin, and the jarring edit before and after used disguise the swap.
39	* SpringtimeForHitler: Not part of the plot, but on a meta level, the film itself could be seen as a RealLife example. While their aim was not failure, Dalí and Buñuel were definitely out to offend. The story goes that when they screened the film for the first time, the duo filled their pockets with rocks in order to defend themselves against the inevitably violent reactions from their audience. Much to their surprise and disappointment, however, the audience ''enjoyed'' it.
40	* SurrealMusicVideo: falls into the hazy realm between UnbuiltTrope and UrExample, encapsulating the concept that the future genre would embrace, but created as an objet d'art for its own sake rather than as an accessory or response an existing musical piece. A major unbuilt aspect is that there was no set soundtrack to the original film, with Buñuel instead playing a varying selection of music at different screenings. The modern standard soundtrack consisting of samples from [[Theatre/TristanUndIsoldeWagner "Liebestrod"]], "Tango Argentino", and "Recuerdos" was added in the 1960's with [[ApprovalOfGod Buñuel's approval]] as representative of the intended experience.
41	* TakeThat: The two dead donkeys dragged by the young man at one point are a pointed reference to ''Platero y yo'' by Juan Ramón Jiménez. A famous Spanish-language poetic novel about [[ABoyAndHisX a man and his faithful donkey]], the somewhat diabetes-flavored ode to SimpleMindedWisdom, {{Arcadia}}, and the GoodOldWays in general was a shared object of disdain for the two creators.
42	* TimeSkip: The title cards sometimes say "eight years later", "sixteen years earlier" or "in Springtime", but there is little in the content to indicate an actual TimeSkip. After the "sixteen years earlier" card, the movie picks up right where it was, in the exact same scene.
43	* UnexplainedRecovery: The woman who has her eye sliced apparently has both eyes functioning perfectly eight years later. Probably justified, due to the amount of other weird stuff that happens in the film.
44	* WipeThatSmileOffYourFace: Someone's mouth disappears, soon to be replaced with armpit hair. It makes about as much sense as anything else in this movie.

Context Film / UnChienAndalou