Both Un Chien Andalou and Meshes of the Afternoon
Both Un Chien Andalou and Meshes of the Afternoon are portrait films of surrealism. Surrealism is a perspective of art movement founded in 1920 that seeks to offer a worldview of the unconscious to decipher the might of imagination. The art of surrealism holds the view that an individual is only reasonable when the mind can repress imaginative thoughts. The theory of surrealism is ascribed to Karl Max and other subsequent studies that further advanced the perspective of surrealism through the tenets of Karl Max theory. Generally, this theory is underpinned by the view that contradiction, in reality, can be influenced by the psyche. In this case, surrealism stresses the impact of individual's imagination that further influences other aspects such as Romanticism and tradition.
Un Chien Andalou
Un Chien Andalou is a film based on surrealism with a portrayal of surreal themes and symbols. At the beginning of the film, the directors Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel introduce a strange scene of slitting of an eye of a woman and the carcass of a horse on a piano being pulled. Though these would be seen as just the stylistic introduction of the film it harbors meaning in surrealist point of views considering that surrealism is a movement that seeks to offer a divergent point of view (Jo 119). The significance of the slitting of an eye is the psychological preparation of the audience about the trauma and the horrid scenes that are anticipated as the movies unfold. The events are revealed when the woman that appears at the beginning of the movie appears almost in every scene but under traumatizing experiences.
Meshes of the Afternoon
In Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Deren provides the viewpoint of a woman's dream by a systematic objects arrangement to unravel the realities such as the existence of gender, world of ideas realities of life and other factors that affect life (Mandy). The film also captures the societal misconception of gender such as a woman's roles in the society. At some point, romanticism is captured through sexual desires.
Gender Themes
Since the two films are based on surrealism there are a number of themes that are identical for instance, gender. In Un Chien Andalou gender is depicted in the 1920s European society after the First World War (Jo 123). The characterization of gender in the film through androgynous figure lends credence to the dressing code of that era that was marked by the style known as garconne. In addition, the first man in one scene appears in a domestic setup reifying the perceived dominance of a man and entailing the gender roles tension that is usually witnessed in real life. Similarly, in Meshes of the Afternoon, there is a revelation of gender roles in the society retrospectively through the expectation that a woman respects her husband and be submissive. In conformity with the societal convention, this film captures societal expectation of gender in reality with the condemnation of any noticeable deviation from the societal normative (Jo 135).
Themes of Dreams and Imagination
To conclude, since the two films share surrealism foundation, the theme of the dream is common in both. According to surrealism perspective, the use of dreams is expected as it can be seen in the first man's incident of seeing ant-like creatures crawling out of a hole that is in his hand and also the depictions of a street with several hands. Likewise in Meshes, the director captures the dreams of a woman through the juxtaposition of objects to provide an alternative to the conceptualization of dreams and imaginations.
Works cited
Evans, Jo. "Luis Buñuel's Missing Dog and Other Animals: Un Chien Andalou (1929), L'Âge d'Or (1930) and Las Hurdes: Tierra sin pan (1933)." Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies 1.1 (2017): 117-137.
Jacobs, Mandy. "A Film Criticism of Meshes of the Afternoon." (2015). Internet source.
