Surrealism

Surrealism evolved in 1924 and took the idea of Dadaism. Dadaism was an intellectual movement against the World War I, it has humorous ad shocking style. Though, Surrealist films’ are in the concept of Dada cinema, Surrealism is differed from humorous style of Dada.

Surrealist film is known in a no plot films and a film that will escape you from reality, literally reality. All of the surrealist films are in a way different from real life, it’s like creating an imagination to a big screen. The flows of surrealist films are similar when we were dreaming; there’s no linear story and eventually inserting a weird characters or scenario that’s not related to the events.

Best example of Surrealist film is Un Chien Andalou by Luis Bunel.

If you watch the Luis Bunel’s short film, it is clearly a surrealist film. Un chien Andalou has no linear narrative story. The film opens where Luis Bunel sharpens his razor and saw a cloud crossing to a moon. Then he saw a girl and he razor the woman’s eye and suddenly cut again into a overcome clouds to a moon. If you look closely, when the man slit the woman’s eye and the overcome clouds to a moon are in similar scene, moon symbolizes eye and the razor is the clouds. There are many weird scenes in the film just like that. First, is when the young man’s hand has hole where ants came through. Second, is a slow transition focusing on the armpit hair of the young woman as she lies on the beach and a cut of a sea urchin, which kind similar in a physical aspect. Third, there’s a young woman keeps hitting at a severe hand by his cane in to a crowd. Fourth, when the young man touches the young woman’s breast there’s a slow cut of a big bottom. Fifth, when the young man corners the young woman, he pulled a rope with a 2 grand piano, dead donkey and two young men. Sixth, the 2 books suddenly become 2 guns. Seventh, the young man wipes his mouth off in his face by his hand. Seventh, the young woman puts lipstick and suddenly she saw that the color of lipstick is in the mouth of the young man, and realizing that the mouth of the young man is in the armpit of the young woman. And Lastly, when the young woman exits the apartment the location is change into a beach.

Even though this film has no narrative story to catch up to, still, it was very entertaining.