Un Chien Andalou （1928） does not have a traditional narrative, it allows the process of thinking to appear directly in the form of a picture through non-linear images of time, symbols, conflicts.

Reality is destroyed and reorganized in the film. Although the film uses real image elements (people, streets, rooms), these things are reassembled into dreams. It tells us that movies do not have to reflect reality but can also grow fantasy from reality.

In Un Chien Andalou, the narrative is almost eliminated. The film deliberately rejects linear stories, allowing the audience to rely on emotions and symbols to understand rather than causal logic. As Ebert observes, “to look at the film is to learn how thoroughly we have been taught by other films to find meaning even when it isn’t there.” (Ebert, 2000). This reflects Buñuel’s aim to destroy narrative expectation: to force the viewer into a confrontation with their own desire for sense and order.

Buñuel and Dalí set a principle when making this film: they didn’t want any images that could be explained.

The film is superficially full of symbols (eyes, ants, moon, etc.), but these symbols have no corresponding meaning or even contradict each other. So, when you try to explain it, it becomes a joke. The film is not empty but uses the absurd to expose our obsession with order.

When we are forced to interpret these fragments, we are actually looking at ourselves, seeing that we cannot stand the chaos and accept the anxiety of “meaninglessness”. But paradoxically, this “ridicule” itself has taken on a new meaning.

Buñuel’s success made me realize that the search for meaning itself is an inescapable human desire.

Word Count: 253

References:

Un Chien Andalou movie review (1928) | Roger Ebert (2000b). https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-un-chien-andalou-1928.

Image taken from the Un Chien Andalou (1929)by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalíat 21’02” demonstrating “showing two bodies were half-buried on the beach. It looks like a narrative but breaks off the narrative; It doesn’t make sense, but it forces you to feel something. Absurdity is not necessarily violent, it can also be mild, ambiguous, like a small picture leaked out of a dream.