The film begins, after appearing a "once upon a time" label, with a man (Buñuel himself), sharpening a razor blade on a full moon night; then, while a few clouds cut the moon, he, with the razor, cuts a woman's eye. Then, another label, an "eight years later" sign appears, a man (Pierre Batcheff) drives a bicycle through Paris extravagantly dressed, while a young woman (Simone Mareuil) reads on a second floor, she watches the cyclist fall and hit the sidewalk; then she comes down and kisses him frantically. After putting his clothes on the bed, we see the subject, who watches his hand, which is traversed by numerous ants. Then, both men and women observe from the second floor an androgynous being in the street, who plays with a severed hand, after which he is hit by a car, and dies. The death of the androgyne excites the man, who fumbles and chases the girl lustfully through the room; while he stalks her, he is weighed down by two pianos that has two dead donkeys on top, as well as a pair of Marist friars. She manages to escape the siege, then another character appears, a sort of "double" of the man, who throws his clothes out the window, and punishes him by putting him against the wall. The man ends up murdering the punishing individual. Finally, the girl leaves the subject, goes with another man, with whom she ends up buried in a beach and being devoured by insects.
In the twenties of the last century, all the experimental filmmakers were in Paris, the mecca of the avant-garde filmmakers, and
An Andalusian Dog is largely an excerpt of the experimental cinematic feeling of all the filmmakers of those days, and also a portrait of the Paris of that time. It is worth mentioning the initial intention of the producers of the film, as the director himself declares: "We wrote the script in less than a week, following a very simple rule: not to accept idea or image that could lead to a rational, psychological or cultural explanation". Part of the plot of the film came from Buñuel, gathered with his great friend Dalí, in the Residence of Students of Madrid, house of studies that reunited the great intellectual personalities of the time. In the meeting, Buñuel relates a dream to the painter, in which he cut the eye of a woman with a razor blade; at the same time Dalí narrates his own dream, seeing his hand rounded for the ants. That was the starting point, the two images pleased both artists, and began to build the work from there. The portrait of Buñuel seemed inspired by the verses of his favorite poet, Benjamin Péret: If there is a pleasure / it is to make love / the body surrounded by ropes /
and eyes closed by the razor blades. The intention, then, was not to let any possible interpretation, as implied by the surrealist current, sought to look inside and abandon all external convention, wanted to transmite dreamlike feelings, images of the unconscious, nothing conventional nor rational. A break with the plane of reality is produced with the labels, signs that refers us to timeless scenarios, such as "once upon a time", "eight years later", or "in times of spring", Buñuel breaks reality to transport us to his oniric scenario. This was not the first audiovisual realization that sought to capture the ideals of surrealism, but it was the one that would definitely cement this cinema movement, the intellectual world of then applauded the work, and the director was unanimously welcomed in the most important artistic nucleus of then, France. Buñuel, a year later with
The Golden Age, and other filmmakers, would continue the audiovisual production with surrealist inclinations; Jean Cocteau, who viewed the now commented film, praised it and later would do the same with
The blood of a poet (1932).
Along with Breton, Antonin Artaud was one of the great surrealism standard-bearers, his contemporaries tell us how he also wanted to express himself in the audiovisual, to express his literary compositions in the cinema. But as well as Buñuel admits that he had not felt like a talented painter or a literary man, Artaud was unable to make the audiovisual leap, and everything that the playwright could not do, the great filmmaker was able to bring to the cinema. Many of the themes of Buñuel's entire filmography are already in this short film, we already see death, sex, religion, repression, etc. Surrealism is intimately linked with the then so fashionable Freudian theories, giving importance to sex, the unconscious; and sex is actually one of the cornerstones of the film -and Buñuel's oeuvre- with the lusty subject who repeatedly stalks the girl, drooling caresses her breasts, which become buttocks, a characteristic feature of surrealism, and very Freudian. Despite the wishes of the authors of the film, it is inevitable that interpretations, psychological, philosophical, and from other perspectives are sought, some even considering the work of interpreting this film as simple. Thus, and always from subjective perspectives, some see an evident allegory to Christianity in the sequence where the man pursues the woman, he wants to consummate his sexual impulse, she defends herself with a racket that very tentatively resembles a crucifix, hung over the bed. She represses sex with the crucifix, symbolizes how religion represses sex, and that supposed crucifix-racket peeps again, when the "double" father punishes the man, the head-down punished is placed against the wall and under that repressive element. Likewise, some Western allegories have been assumed in the figures of the pianos that carries the lustful, pianos that are heavy burden, that stop him, that hinder the consummation of his sexual desire, we see the Marist friars, religion again hindering that desire, and donkeys, dead sawhorses that refer to putrefaction. It is pertinent to point out that to interpret any artistic work is in itself almost an arbitrary, subjective fact, but in the case of surrealist works, the way of interpretation is almost as infinite and plausible as opinionators might be, not missing the one that has wanted to see in the representation of the late donkeys a mockery and insult to the figure of their contemporary Juan Ramon Jimenez (author of
Platero and me).
It will be vital to better understand the picture to know the life of the three illustrious artists involved, Buñuel himself, Dalí, and García Lorca, the Andalusian who attributes the title of the film. Garcia Lorca, first intimate friend of the painter, was homosexual, deeply in love with Dalí, unrequited love, and friendship truncated when Buñuel appeared, who despised Lorca. The celebrated author of
Romancero Gitano even has been seen in the figure of the androgyne, with the cut-off hand symbolizing Dalí's onanistic sexual impulse, which is enclosed in the grated box that carried the cyclist; Lorca asserted that the title was in allusion and contempt of Buñuel towards him, something that the director denied. In this respect it is curious that the film was initially mute, something normal due to its year of release, and it was not until 1960 that the musical accompaniment was added to the work, with supervision and authorization of the filmmaker. The formidable Wagnerian piece of Tristan and Isolde, impossible love, was chosen for that sequence, perhaps symbolizing the impossible love of the androgyne, the impossible love of Lorca and Dalí. This, since ants are recurrent and significant in the shy and onanist Dalí, as we see in
The Great Masturbator (1927), those ants that run through the hand that appears in significant moments. Another possible interpretation is the oedipal complex, with the figure of that "double", a father if you will, throwing the children's clothes that the girl ordered before, punishing and repressing the young man against the wall, who finally liquidates that "father" punisher, who frees himself from this repression. Another possible interpretation is when the female leaves the libidinous man, encloses him in the room after killing the "double", traps his hand with the door, completely stops that sex drive. She goes out on a beach, with a man whose first action is to show her a wristwatch; it has been wanted to see in this certain feminine lightness, preferring the stability and security of a man with employment and fixed salary, what the watch represents. Interpretations aside, the connection of the images, many of them shocking -especially, of course, the supposedly severed female eye, which was actually a shaved cow's head-, is the nucleus of the film, the sensation generated by that viewing, that terror, that repulsion awakened by the dreamlike, paradoxical, oniric images that Buñuel used to exclude the spectator from any conventionalism. It is in that effect where the film rests, because regarding realization, the picture is quite handcrafted, of low budget (it was shot with the pesetas that the mother of Buñuel had left him). With that low budget and a lot of creativity, the Aragonese filmed his reference work, with a good assembly and a few overlays of images; and that's it, not many more technical artifices, complexes travellings or other resources, in a handmade but well made picture. Interpretations, almost infinite; correct or incorrect interpretations, probably none. It is a referential work, forced to be viewed by experimental cinema, surrealist cinema, art cinema connoisseur.
Surrealism was born in Paris, France in 1924 with the publication of André Breton's Surrealist Manifesto, becoming the avant-garde of art in all its manifestations, and of course this would soon be reflected in the effervescent film industry of those years. It is known the orientation of surrealism, dreamlike themes, unconscious, seeks to move away from reason and conventional, to leave room for the world of dreams, the unconscious, where it seeks to split from any convention or possible interpretation. The Spanish Luis Buñuel was who, in collaboration with the painter Salvador Dalí, would produce the first great surrealist cinematographic work. This short film was the result of the union of images that were presented in dreams to both Spanish artists, contains many of the topics that will accompany Buñuel throughout his artistic life, and is largely the great cinematic surrealist manifesto. A story, as it was said, proper to the dream: an individual cuts a woman's eye with a razor blade; another character observes many ants flowing through his hand while libidinously pursuing a female; an androgynous being is liquidated; the libidinous drags a heavy piano containing dead donkeys and friars; in short, a total delusion, a dream, a work to which its authors affirm should not be sought any kind of interpretation.
The film begins, after appearing a "once upon a time" label, with a man (Buñuel himself), sharpening a razor blade on a full moon night; then, while a few clouds cut the moon, he, with the razor, cuts a woman's eye. Then, another label, an "eight years later" sign appears, a man (Pierre Batcheff) drives a bicycle through Paris extravagantly dressed, while a young woman (Simone Mareuil) reads on a second floor, she watches the cyclist fall and hit the sidewalk; then she comes down and kisses him frantically. After putting his clothes on the bed, we see the subject, who watches his hand, which is traversed by numerous ants. Then, both men and women observe from the second floor an androgynous being in the street, who plays with a severed hand, after which he is hit by a car, and dies. The death of the androgyne excites the man, who fumbles and chases the girl lustfully through the room; while he stalks her, he is weighed down by two pianos that has two dead donkeys on top, as well as a pair of Marist friars. She manages to escape the siege, then another character appears, a sort of "double" of the man, who throws his clothes out the window, and punishes him by putting him against the wall. The man ends up murdering the punishing individual. Finally, the girl leaves the subject, goes with another man, with whom she ends up buried in a beach and being devoured by insects.
In the twenties of the last century, all the experimental filmmakers were in Paris, the mecca of the avant-garde filmmakers, and An Andalusian Dog is largely an excerpt of the experimental cinematic feeling of all the filmmakers of those days, and also a portrait of the Paris of that time. It is worth mentioning the initial intention of the producers of the film, as the director himself declares: "We wrote the script in less than a week, following a very simple rule: not to accept idea or image that could lead to a rational, psychological or cultural explanation". Part of the plot of the film came from Buñuel, gathered with his great friend Dalí, in the Residence of Students of Madrid, house of studies that reunited the great intellectual personalities of the time. In the meeting, Buñuel relates a dream to the painter, in which he cut the eye of a woman with a razor blade; at the same time Dalí narrates his own dream, seeing his hand rounded for the ants. That was the starting point, the two images pleased both artists, and began to build the work from there. The portrait of Buñuel seemed inspired by the verses of his favorite poet, Benjamin Péret: If there is a pleasure / it is to make love / the body surrounded by ropes / and eyes closed by the razor blades. The intention, then, was not to let any possible interpretation, as implied by the surrealist current, sought to look inside and abandon all external convention, wanted to transmite dreamlike feelings, images of the unconscious, nothing conventional nor rational. A break with the plane of reality is produced with the labels, signs that refers us to timeless scenarios, such as "once upon a time", "eight years later", or "in times of spring", Buñuel breaks reality to transport us to his oniric scenario. This was not the first audiovisual realization that sought to capture the ideals of surrealism, but it was the one that would definitely cement this cinema movement, the intellectual world of then applauded the work, and the director was unanimously welcomed in the most important artistic nucleus of then, France. Buñuel, a year later with The Golden Age, and other filmmakers, would continue the audiovisual production with surrealist inclinations; Jean Cocteau, who viewed the now commented film, praised it and later would do the same with The blood of a poet (1932).
Along with Breton, Antonin Artaud was one of the great surrealism standard-bearers, his contemporaries tell us how he also wanted to express himself in the audiovisual, to express his literary compositions in the cinema. But as well as Buñuel admits that he had not felt like a talented painter or a literary man, Artaud was unable to make the audiovisual leap, and everything that the playwright could not do, the great filmmaker was able to bring to the cinema. Many of the themes of Buñuel's entire filmography are already in this short film, we already see death, sex, religion, repression, etc. Surrealism is intimately linked with the then so fashionable Freudian theories, giving importance to sex, the unconscious; and sex is actually one of the cornerstones of the film -and Buñuel's oeuvre- with the lusty subject who repeatedly stalks the girl, drooling caresses her breasts, which become buttocks, a characteristic feature of surrealism, and very Freudian. Despite the wishes of the authors of the film, it is inevitable that interpretations, psychological, philosophical, and from other perspectives are sought, some even considering the work of interpreting this film as simple. Thus, and always from subjective perspectives, some see an evident allegory to Christianity in the sequence where the man pursues the woman, he wants to consummate his sexual impulse, she defends herself with a racket that very tentatively resembles a crucifix, hung over the bed. She represses sex with the crucifix, symbolizes how religion represses sex, and that supposed crucifix-racket peeps again, when the "double" father punishes the man, the head-down punished is placed against the wall and under that repressive element. Likewise, some Western allegories have been assumed in the figures of the pianos that carries the lustful, pianos that are heavy burden, that stop him, that hinder the consummation of his sexual desire, we see the Marist friars, religion again hindering that desire, and donkeys, dead sawhorses that refer to putrefaction. It is pertinent to point out that to interpret any artistic work is in itself almost an arbitrary, subjective fact, but in the case of surrealist works, the way of interpretation is almost as infinite and plausible as opinionators might be, not missing the one that has wanted to see in the representation of the late donkeys a mockery and insult to the figure of their contemporary Juan Ramon Jimenez (author of Platero and me).
It will be vital to better understand the picture to know the life of the three illustrious artists involved, Buñuel himself, Dalí, and García Lorca, the Andalusian who attributes the title of the film. Garcia Lorca, first intimate friend of the painter, was homosexual, deeply in love with Dalí, unrequited love, and friendship truncated when Buñuel appeared, who despised Lorca. The celebrated author of Romancero Gitano even has been seen in the figure of the androgyne, with the cut-off hand symbolizing Dalí's onanistic sexual impulse, which is enclosed in the grated box that carried the cyclist; Lorca asserted that the title was in allusion and contempt of Buñuel towards him, something that the director denied. In this respect it is curious that the film was initially mute, something normal due to its year of release, and it was not until 1960 that the musical accompaniment was added to the work, with supervision and authorization of the filmmaker. The formidable Wagnerian piece of Tristan and Isolde, impossible love, was chosen for that sequence, perhaps symbolizing the impossible love of the androgyne, the impossible love of Lorca and Dalí. This, since ants are recurrent and significant in the shy and onanist Dalí, as we see in The Great Masturbator (1927), those ants that run through the hand that appears in significant moments. Another possible interpretation is the oedipal complex, with the figure of that "double", a father if you will, throwing the children's clothes that the girl ordered before, punishing and repressing the young man against the wall, who finally liquidates that "father" punisher, who frees himself from this repression. Another possible interpretation is when the female leaves the libidinous man, encloses him in the room after killing the "double", traps his hand with the door, completely stops that sex drive. She goes out on a beach, with a man whose first action is to show her a wristwatch; it has been wanted to see in this certain feminine lightness, preferring the stability and security of a man with employment and fixed salary, what the watch represents. Interpretations aside, the connection of the images, many of them shocking -especially, of course, the supposedly severed female eye, which was actually a shaved cow's head-, is the nucleus of the film, the sensation generated by that viewing, that terror, that repulsion awakened by the dreamlike, paradoxical, oniric images that Buñuel used to exclude the spectator from any conventionalism. It is in that effect where the film rests, because regarding realization, the picture is quite handcrafted, of low budget (it was shot with the pesetas that the mother of Buñuel had left him). With that low budget and a lot of creativity, the Aragonese filmed his reference work, with a good assembly and a few overlays of images; and that's it, not many more technical artifices, complexes travellings or other resources, in a handmade but well made picture. Interpretations, almost infinite; correct or incorrect interpretations, probably none. It is a referential work, forced to be viewed by experimental cinema, surrealist cinema, art cinema connoisseur.
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