Before
their volatile relationship between Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali
soured, the two surrealists created cinema's first and perhaps most
pure example of surrealism on film as exists to this day. It is a
combination of dream and nightmare from an actively surreal
perspective. The 17-minute film started riots when it premiered in
Paris in 1929. Bunuel carried rocks in his pockets to throw at his
attackers. Famous for a scene of the Bunuel himself slitting a woman's
eye with a straight-razor while smoking a cigarette, the film remains
in heavy rotation in America's college classes where it's shown in a
variety of academic contexts. There is a certain circus sideshow
quality in the way Bunuel and Dali gloat over their strange images,
like a swarm of ants erupting from a hole in the middle of a man's
hand. With irreverent abandon the maverick artists provoke the audience
with a movie that celebrates film's adaptive quality at exposing the
sub-conscious mind. "Un Chien Andalou" is 17-minutes of sheer cinematic
genius.