Movie	Extras
Audio	Video

I have the region 1 release by Transflux Film.

Movie
The movie is good.  Smarter people have said more insightful things about the movie than this, but I’m neither intellectual enough or eloquent enough to write anything else.  Talking endlessly about the movie and what I think it means would just be a waste of words and time.

Instead, I’ll say one or two things about the movie itself.  I think it’s interesting that this came from dreams, which Sigmund Freud thought contained subconscious messages, and that the movie is filled with death.  Combine that with Mr. Barber’s talk on sex, and you’ve got quite a Freudian movie.  Well, it’s a surrealist work, so that’s shouldn’t be so surprising, I suppose.

I discovered this movie because I had too much free time between classes.  I had big breaks between classes in university, so one day I decided to go to the library and watch a couple of movies.  I then essentially discovered experimental cinema, watching strange things happening on a television screen week after week.  I remember ‘Ballet Mechanique’ and ‘The Golden Beetle’ and ‘The Well’ and other really early works, showing you what people were doing at the start of the 20th century in the movie world.  One of the first things I saw (perhaps even the first, I don’t quite remember for sure) was ‘Un Chien Andalou’.  I’d heard of it before, of course, and I jumped at the chance to finally see it.

I’ve seen the short many times since then and nothing else has really been stranger.  It’s interesting how things, like in dreams, move from one situation to another without any real explanation, yet still retaining some semblance of coherence.

I really like director/co-writer Luis Buñuel.  He always made movies to challenge people.  Later with ‘L’Age d’or’ and with his less scattered works, like ‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’, he always showed you things that surprised you and made you laugh.

Commentary by Stephen Barber
Mr. Barber is a surrealist expert and his delivery kind of reminded me of Kiefer Sutherland’s character in ‘Dark City’.  He does his best to situate the movie in the evolution of surrealist cinema.  He talks about its place in the end of the 1920s and how it differed with other works of the time.  He talks about the sex and death in the movie.  It’s not the most interesting commentary.  I thought he’d concentrate on the imagery and symbolism, but he leaves that to you.

A Slice of Buñuel
This is about 16 minutes and 10 second long and is quite interesting.  Juan-Luis Buñuel, Luis Buñuel’s son, talks about his father and gives out stories.  He talks about his father’s early life and how he met Salvador Dali.  He talks about Luis Buñuel’s introduction to film and his inspiration and method for making ‘Un chien andalou’.  It’s all very interesting and I especially like the story about the trolley.

Epilogue: Dali & Buñuel
This is only 4 minutes and 40 seconds and it talks about the end of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali’s friendship.  Again, Juan-Luis Buñuel relates his memories and the information he knows regarding what happened.  It’s a sad ending, but that’s life.

Design
This is two pictures and two pages of text.  It’s really short and should at least have more pictures.  The two provided are very interesting.  The two pages of text are a biography of Dave McKean and a statement of his regarding the movie and cinema.  It’s nice but too short.

The DVD also comes with an insert containing and abridged version of a speech given by Luis Buñuel.  His movie typify his speech.  It’s completely in character.  It is interesting, and worth reading if you buy the DVD.

Audio
Only in mono, but what do you expect, right.  You hear the music very well, but there’s still a little bit of hissing throughout the movie.  Maybe my speakers are bad, but that’s what I heard.

Video
1.33 full frame.  The picture looks kind of bad, but given the movie, I don’t think anybody’s going to object too hard.  The contrast is good and the whites are white and the blacks are black.  You’ve got specks and things going on, but in any other way, the movie would just look strange.  It’s okay, but nothing else.

10/8/2005