UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1929)

[Update 06/05/2023: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

In 1929 a 29-year-old Luis Bunuel asked his mother for $2,500 to make a movie. He spent half of the money in Paris and the other half making quite possibly the greatest movie of all time. Not a bad deal.

"When I made the film, I was absolutely sure that it was going to be a failure; but I didn't care because I had the conviction that it expressed something, until then never said in pictures. Above all it was sincere."

UN CHIEN ANDALOU was Bunuel's first film and only 16 minutes long, but in that 16 minutes he changed Cinema forever and 65 years later (when I saw it for the first time) it changed my life forever. Made in collaboration with fellow Surrealist Salvador Dali - nobody will ever know how much the collaboration was, but based on their later separate work I personally think the majority was Bunuel. But you do see Dali's influence in stuff like the garden scene, the woman's bare back and the cocktail shaker bell.

THE ANDALUSIAN DOG doesn't feature a dog at all, instead the narrative is more like dream flow of non-connecting visuals and objects and time. There is no explaining any of it, but it is a delight to watch the film over and over and dissecting everything. Not over analyze it, but just pick out all the small details. I won't do it here, there's plenty of books that have already done it.

Highest recommendation possible. UN CHIEN ANDALOU shouldn't just be watch, but absorbed into your mind.

THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ (1955)

One evening when he was very young, the spoiled Archibaldo is playing with a music box that he was told has magical powers because it once belonged to a king. As he winds it up he wishes for his nanny to die. At that very moment a stray bullet comes through the window killing her instantly. When she falls her dress hikes up exposing her legs. Young Archi stares stares in complete shock as the blood gushes from her neck and onto her legs.

Years later, as an adult, Archibaldo is convinced that he has a blood lust. He tries to prove it by killing women, but every time he tries to kill somebody they are either murdered by somebody else or die accidentally!  Example: he pulls a knife on a nun and tells her that he's going to give her the gift of death so she can be with God. She understandably freaks out and goes running down the hallway and accidentally falls down an elevator shaft to her death before Archibaldo can give her her "gift".

At the investigation Archibaldo tells the commissioner about his blood lust and that he's a great criminal...at least in his own mind he is, but the commissioner only laughs and tells him "If we imprisoned everybody who ever wanted to kill somebody...!" From here we go into an extended flashback which has other examples of Archibaldo desperately wanting to kill somebody, but always failing.

Not the most surreal of Bunuel's films, but it's still a highly entertaining and dark film filled with smaller Bunuel touches like the mannequin and the woman trading places, the overly obscene woman and the funny moment when Archi's mother finds out the show at the theater has been canceled due to the Mexican Revolution: she stamps her foot and cries "It would have to be today!"

TCLOADLC is a very enjoyable film. Recommended for sure.

ARACHNOPHOBIA (1990)

[Update 10/17/2021: Need to redo this review completely.]













Would make a creepy / fun double feature withEIGHT LEGGED FREAKS.

ALIEN was released in 1979, not "the 80's".