Un Chien Andalou

Alas, another Luis Bunuel film, however this time thankfully much shorter than L’Age d’Or.

One of the few things I have in common with Rachel Green from Friends is I have a thing about eyes. I don’t like people touching them, sticking things into them or anything like that. This has lessened since I’ve started wearing contact lenses, but still the infamous opening shot, of a man slitting open a woman’s eye with a razor, is entirely unnecessary, included merely for shock value and nothing else. The cut to a full moon being ‘slit’ by a thin passing cloud was well used, and I feel that should have been enough to imply to action of slitting, but I suppose without the shot, the film would not be as well known, and may not even appear on this list. The rest of the film is as much a senseless mish-mash as anything Bunuel and Dali have made, with ants crawling from an open wound, a disembodied hand being poked with a stick and a man dragging two pianos carrying dead horses and some strung up pilgrims, so nothing too weird this time. I’m not looking forward to the other Bunuel films on the list, that’s for certain.

Choose Life. Never stop choosing life. 3/10

L'Age d'Or

You know the feeling, you’re trying to plan a party, deciding whether to have six singers in front of a microphone or 60 singers 10 kilometres away, when you go upstairs and there’s a cow in your bed. Just an everyday occurrence, I know, but still a little annoying. And then during your party, the man you so desperately want to be with (seemingly John Lithgow doing a Dick Dastardly impersonation) is prevented from being with you, by a woman who spills his drink of him and a man shooting a small boy several times outside. Finally, the two of you are able to sneak off and suck each other’s hand whilst rolling around in the gravel, but all he seems interested in is a statue’s foot, so obviously when he’s called away to scream at the Minister of the Interior, you suck said stony appendage until he returns, when you rejoice about having killed your children. And of course, when the orchestra conductor interrupts you while clutching at his head, your man storms off to shred your pillows, and throw them, along with a burning tree, various items of furniture including a full scale wooden giraffe, and possibly the Pope out of a window.

 

And then, wouldn’t you know it, Jesus and his mates are only having an orgy in the mountains somewhere. Not to mention the man kicking a violin along the street, another man walking with a rock on his head, past a statue of a similarly be-hatted fellow, and a short documentary about scorpions. Honestly, what is a girl to do? If all this sounds fairly run of the mill, congratulations, your Luis Bunuel, or you’ve just escaped from an institution, and are looking for a way out of your straight jacket. This film is nuts.

Choose life 3/10