Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog)

Year Published: 1929

Creator: Luis Bunuel Salvador Dali

Complete Record: In a dreamlike sequence, a woman's eye is slit open with a similarly shaped cloud obscuring the moon moving in the same direction as the knife through the eye. The French phrase "ants in the palms," is shown literally. A man pulls a piano along with the tablets of the Ten Commandments and a dead donkey towards the woman he's itching to kill. A shot of differently striped objects is repeatedly used to connect scenes. Scenes of a black moth, a couple walking on the beach. Full Synposis: Note: For descriptive purposes, the main characters shall be referred to in the summary as, in order of appearance: the husband, the wife, the lover, the detective, and the father. The film opens with what may be the film's conclusion; an older man, the "husband", (played by Luis Buñuel) sharpens his razor at his balcony door and tests the razor on his thumb. He then opens the door, and idly fingers the razor while gazing at the moon, about to be engulfed by a thin cloud, from his balcony. There is a cut to a close-up of a woman, the "wife", (Simone Mareuil) as she calmly stares straight ahead. Another cut occurs to the moon being overcome by the cloud as the "wife's" eye is slit by the "husband" with his razor. The subsequent title card reads "eight years later". A slim younger man, the "lover", (Pierre Batcheff) bicycles down a calm urban street wearing what appears to be a nun's habit and carrying a locked box with a strap around his neck. A cut occurs to the "wife", who has been waiting anxiously in a well furnished upstairs room, hears the "lover" approaching on his bicycle and throws aside the book she has been reading to look out the window. She emerges from the building and attempts to revive the "lover" after witnessing him collapse. Later, the woman assembles pieces of the "lover's" clothing on a bed in the upstairs room, and seemingly through thought, causes the "lover" to appear near the door. The "lover" and the "wife" analyze his hand, which has a hole in the palm from which ants emerge. A slow transition occurs focusing on the armpit hair of an unknown figure and a shrub at a sandy location, then showing an androgynous blind figure, the "detective", who is poking at a severed hand in the street below with a cane while surrounded by an upset crowd and the police. The crowd clears when the police place the hand in the box the "lover" had, and the "detective" stands contemplating in the middle of a busy street before being run down by a car. The "lover" seems to take sadistic pleasure in the blind figure's danger and subsequent death, and as he asks the shocked "wife's" opinion, he grasps her bosom. The "wife" resists him at first, but then allows him to feel her as he imagines her nude. The "wife" pushes him away as he drifts off mentally and attempts to escape by running to the other side of the room. The "lover" corners her as she reaches for a racket in self-defense, but he suddenly is forced to drag two grand pianos containing dead and rotting donkeys, stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, and two rather bewildered priests (played by Jaime Miravilles and Salvador Dali) who are attached by ropes. As he is unable to move, the "wife" escapes the apartment. A transition to "three in the morning" occurs. The "lover" is roused from his sleep in the apartment by the sound of a doorbell (represented by the shaking of a martini shaker by a set of arms through two holes in a wall). The "lover's" "father" (also played by Pierre Batcheff) seemingly arrives to punish him for his lecherous actions against the "wife", and a chase around the apartment ensues. The "lover" eventually shoots his "father" with two books he picks up that abruptly turn into pistols; the "wife" comes into the apartment to confront the "lover" and is shocked by what has happened. The "lover" subsequently makes her armpit hair attach itself to where his mouth should be on his face through gestures. The "wife" looks in shock and disgust at the "lover", and leaves the apartment sticking her tongue out at him. As she exits her apartment, the street is replaced by a coastal beach. The "wife" meets the "husband" on the beach. They seem to walk away clutching each other happily in a long tracking shot. However, the film abruptly cuts to the final shot, showing the couple buried in sand up to their shoulders, presumably dead after the unknown events of the opening scene, bringing the film full circle.