Un Chien Andalou
1929 · 16m · France
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Genres: experimental, horror, surrealism
Tones: dark, darkly comic, provocative, surreal
A surrealist collaboration between Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, the film presents a series of dreamlike, loosely connected scenes — including the infamous razor-sliced eye — that reject narrative logic in favor of subconscious imagery and provocative juxtaposition.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The eye and the razor in 1929 and we're still arguing about it. Buñuel and Dalí writing without logic and ending up with one of the most quoted images in cinema. The ur-text.
Bunuel and Dali's dream collage is non-negotiable in the history of cinematic surrealism, even if a century of imitation has dulled the original shock. The eye-and-razor cut endures.
Buñuel and Dalí writing in weeks, shooting in days, and producing imagery (the razor and eye) that still functions as the shorthand for surrealist cinema — built entirely from dream logic with no narrative scaffolding. Vimeo blocking with captcha.
Reviews
The most famous short film ever made, and anyone halfway interested in the cinema sees it sooner or later, usually several times.
A hugely influential masterpiece stuffed with iconic sequences, Un Chien Andalou has lost none of its power to enthrall — or unsettle.
Festivals
- Studio des Ursulines Paris Premiere 1929