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Analysis and Interpretation of Un Chien Andalou' (1929, Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali)

The document provides an analysis of the 1929 surrealist film "Un Chien Andalou" by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. It summarizes the film's three main sections which depict different scenarios with no literal connection but explore emotions through Freud's idea of free association. The opening scene shows a man sharpening a razor and slicing a woman's eye, interpreted as seeing evil. The middle section shows a man riding a bike in women's clothing, representing the repression of sexuality, followed by a man with ants crawling from his hand, based on Dali's dream. It depicts the struggle between sexual urges and society's repression of them. The document analyzes symbols like the box and hands that play key roles in

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Phil Bennett
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3K views2 pages

Analysis and Interpretation of Un Chien Andalou' (1929, Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali)

The document provides an analysis of the 1929 surrealist film "Un Chien Andalou" by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. It summarizes the film's three main sections which depict different scenarios with no literal connection but explore emotions through Freud's idea of free association. The opening scene shows a man sharpening a razor and slicing a woman's eye, interpreted as seeing evil. The middle section shows a man riding a bike in women's clothing, representing the repression of sexuality, followed by a man with ants crawling from his hand, based on Dali's dream. It depicts the struggle between sexual urges and society's repression of them. The document analyzes symbols like the box and hands that play key roles in

Uploaded by

Phil Bennett
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Psychoanalysis – Un Chien Andalou (1929)

OUCS206
Philip Bennett

Analysis and interpretation of ‘Un Chien Andalou’ (1929,


Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali)

Introduction

The short film titled ‘Un Chien Andalou’ by Bunuel and Dali is one of the best known
surrealist films of the 1920’s avant-garde art movement. Fifteen minutes in length, it is a
silent film that depicts three main sections, all of which have no relevance to each other in a
literal sense, as they both explore different emotions using different scenarios. However, the
whole film has one on-going theme, in my opinion, which is Sigmund Freud’s ‘free
association’. At first viewing, the film is difficult to follow as it is in our nature to try and
bring the whole piece together to understand what the meaning behind the film is. However,
when splitting the film into sections and scrutinising key features and statements, messages
become clearer and you can begin to understand what Bunuel and Dali are trying to portray.

Opening

The first scene shows a gentleman sharpening a straight razor in what seems to be his
bedroom, who then exits onto a balcony where a full moon is shown in the sky. The scene
cuts to a young woman facing the camera, and then the razor comes towards her eye. At
which point the scene suddenly changes to the cloud slicing through the middle of the full
moon, and the scene reverts back to the razor and the eye, where the razor proceeds to slice
open the eye. This was a dream that Bunuel had, and proceeded to tell Dali about it. My
interpretation of this is that the slicing of the eye is meant to signify seeing evil, such as
looking at another person lustfully, committing adultery. The reason I came to such a
conclusion is due to the undertones of the repression of our primal instincts.

Middle section

The second part of the film begins with ‘eight years later’, and you see gentleman riding a
bike down a street wearing a nun’s garment and a box strapped around his neck. My first
response to this is another repression of a sexual drive. The box is to signify hiding

29/03/2011 Page 1
Psychoanalysis – Un Chien Andalou (1929)
OUCS206
Philip Bennett

something away from society, and keeping it close. The woman seen in the first scene is then
shown in her room of her apartment, and then has a shocked look and approaches the window
and see’s the gentleman on the bike. At this point he falls off, and she proceeds to run outside
and help him up to her room. She lays out the outfit he was wearing on a bed, and opens the
box. Inside is a tie and the plastic support that goes around the neck of a shirt to keep the
shape. From this, it seems that the gentleman is repressing his masculine side that has been
forced on him from society. After this, you see another gentleman staring at his hand, which
turns out to have ants crawling out of a hole in his hand. This is a dream that Dali had and
expressed this to Bunuel when he told him of his dream about the moon and the cloud. From
these two dreams the whole film was created. The box is introduced again when a woman is
poking a hand that is in the street. This is to represent death, and a fascination with it. The
hand is then placed inside her box. Sexual drives are then introduced when the gentleman
with the ant hole in his hand begins to grope the woman, particularly her breasts, which flash
to her bum for a second, then back. The imagery of the hand plays a key role in that it’s an
urge coming out. When she resists this approach, the gentleman begins to get angry. He then
begins to pull along two pianos with a dead horse slayed on top. From this, it seems that he is
trying to show off his masculinity to the female. After failing at this, she locks him out of the
room, and focusing on the man from the beginning of the scene who fell of his bike. He is
now up, but another gentleman is angry with him. He is throwing out the nun’s garment he
was wearing, suggesting that this is something that he is really against and trying to turn the
gentleman “normal” again. He is then forced to face a wall, where a noticeable tennis racket
is hung on the wall, possible depicting what a man should be doing. Further notes of
repression of urges are noticed. The man turns away from the wall and is holding two books,
which turn into guns. This projects thoughts of using knowledge as a weapon against the
other gentleman, and he proceeds to shoot and kill him.

29/03/2011 Page 2

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