Sight & Sound Challenge: Un Chien Andalou (1929)

Film: Un Chien Andalou (84/250)

Critics Poll: 93rd 

Directors Poll: 91st 

First Time/Rewatch: First Time

Yes, we all know about the eyeball slicing. I definitely did. In fact, Craig and I were at the Cinémathèque Française on our honeymoon, and there were little screens showing random film clips. I looked up just in time to see the SLICE! and I screamed! Even knowing what happens, that's one hell of a shot. This film, on the whole, didn't do a ton for me. It's definitely weird ("that's SURREALISM!") and didn't seem to say much, not that I think Luis Buñuel or Salvador Dali  intended it to. It's like sitting through a horrible nightmare, where nothing makes sense, and you can't figure out where your brain subconsciously picked up these images. Ants crawling out of a hand, rotting animals on top of pianos, disappearing/reappearing armpit hair (no really!). I prefer Buñuel's later work, but it's memorable, I'll give him that!

Blue Velvet (1986)

Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns from school to visit his father who is gravely ill. On his way to the hospital he finds a human ear which leads him to the dark world of nightclub singer (Isabella Rossellini) and her sadistic tormentor (Dennis Hopper).

*      *      *

When David Lynch was an art student in the mid/late 60s he had an idea to make a painting that moved. This  resulted in the mixed-media piece Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times). Apparently he was pleased with the result, because nearly 50 years later he is still cranking out grotesquely mesmerizing motion-paintings. Paintings with unforgettable images and vivid colors. Paintings that are able to rumble and dance to a meticulously designed soundtrack. Paintings simultaneously repugnant and beautiful. And lastly, paintings that move while also being - moving. Not bad for an Eagle Scout from Montana.

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

Alma (Liv Ullmann) watches helplessly as her artist husband (Max von Sydow) slowly descends into madness.

*      *      *

The "hour of the wolf" (roughly 3am to 4am) is the hour between night and day. It is a limbo which belongs to neither the morning nor the evening. It is also the time when the line between sanity and insanity starts to blur.

While contemporary audiences might disagree with this movie being labeled as a "horror film", I'd be hard-pressed to think of things more horrific than what the characters in this film endure. This is horror in the German Expressionist sense of the word. Not only is it a film about the horror of losing your own sanity, but also the horror of watching someone you love descend into madness. Both in terms of subject-matter and imagery, this film fits perfectly among horror classics like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu.

Persona (1966)

Persona tells the story of two women. One, an actress (Liv Ullmann), has suddenly stopped speaking. The other, her nurse (Bibi Andersson), senses the actress's strength of will and is intimidated by her at first. They stay together in a little house on the beach where they begin to get close and then almost become enemies, and their personalities begin to merge.

The film is sexual, nightmarish, beautiful, tense, puzzling. I set out to watch it expecting to not understand the film, but rather just experience it for what it was. The black and white photography is stunning and there are a couple very memorable monologues spoken by the nurse, who seems to experience every possible emotion in this house.

The film opens and then interjects in the middle with very brief shots that seem to have nothing to do with the story...a sinister face, a nail being driven through a hand, a dead rabbit. Roger Ebert, in his short essay on the film, tells us these images are taking us through film history, an example of what we can find in some of the earliest films. These images, for me, add to the dreamlike quality of the film. Many silent films evoke this feeling for me...the early days of cinema show a world that is nothing like our world today. To watch a film so outside of one's comfort zone has an intoxicating effect on the soul. Or maybe that's just me again.

(This film is currently streamable on Netflix!)