Review of Un Chien Andalou (1929) by Mike M — 19 Jan 2008

Less abstruse than its reputation might suggest, the film constitutes a worldview that's intended as much to be funny as to be weird or shocking (although to be shocked or freaked out is still just as much a legitimate reaction).

If you'll excuse the pun, it remains an eye-opener, demonstrating more than anything else just how many films the Surrealists had been watching, and how steeped they were in the cinematic vocabulary: the film begins with a visual gag on the nature of cutting which is smart and sick at the same time, and proceeds more or less along the lines of a ghostly romantic comedy, with sex as a goal and such items as grand pianos, dead donkeys and prostrate priests as obstacles to that goal.

Amongst the groundbreaking effects work and remarkably sophisticated montage, there are enough severed limbs, locked boxes and localised examples of fear and desire to keep David Lynch up for more of the night than he might ordinarily be.