'Experimental Film requires a different kind of spectatorship.' Has this been your experience? [35]
Un Chien Andalou, the infamous 1929 surrealist short film from Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, attests to this. This, in ways was a tad unsettling to watch. The eyeball cutting scene and the drooling was a bit weird. It deals with very taboo themes such as severed hands and naked women. I found the music a bit annoying, but it was nice they didn't have a narrative, it made everything more up in the air. It made being a viewer more challenging and you had to work hard to find the themes. Some of the themes outside of surrealism was religion, the piano drags two priests on the ground and so they are dragging religion on the ground. It's very dreamlike. In dreams there is no consistency, time doesn't really exist. I think it was mocking society or rebelling from it, it's exploring the sexuality and the unknown. It explores themes like androgyny, this was first explored in the 16th century.
Chris Marker became known internationally for the short film La Jetée (1962). It tells of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel by using a series of filmed photographs developed as a photomontage of varying pace, with limited narration and sound effects. Twelve Monkeys and Minority Report took inspiration from this film. The narrator tells us what is happening, this makes viewing more easier than Un Chien Andalou. The photographs are representing memory and time. These are typical sci-fi conventions. It is really all about perspective and how we choose to view it, I felt it was like a war documentary. When the guy went back to the dead woman i found there love story quite charming. There is no movement, but they made it look like the guy was running and the woman was blinking. All these are very inception like , a paradox. The French and German whispers made the war feel more documentary-like. The movement often challenges perceptions. Did that movement really happen?
Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is a work that maintains all of the mystery, tranquility, unpredictability, and personal attachment that is ever present within the world of dreams. This had a more clearer narrative than Un Chien Andalou, we can tell that she is dreaming when she closes her eyes and the imagery becomes more bizarre, such as with the man in a cape with a mirror for a face. The woman sees herself in the mans perspective, only the image they have for her. So when she breaks the mirror, she is breaking the mans view of her. There are symbols of this with the key in her mouth, she is unlocking herself and her opinions. It seems like a dream-within-a-dream but towards the end it reveals her suicide and so the piece becomes more self-destructive. There's a time lapse of eye being closed, like slow motion. This shows dreams don't have a time concept. The sound at times made it difficult to watch. There is a sense of experimental techniques with there being two people in the same shot. It acts almost like an early Inception. Settings such as the kitchen adds a maternal feel. The knife is a recurring theme, it's exploring themes of violence.
