Reality and Paradox in Un Chien Andalou

It is no secret that Un Chien Andalou is an extremely surrealistic film. It has no plot, and is instead a montage of seemingly random moments strung together. The real question, though, is how random the moments really are. Could there really be some sort of pattern to them, or are they simply put into the film for no true reason?

If there is a reason for the sequencing, it is most definitely not a conscious one. The filmmakers have found a way to put whatever ideas they had into a film for seemingly no reason. From this idea comes one of the psychological paradoxes that the film deals with: even if there is no conscious reason for the scenes, mustn't there be a subconscious reason? There must be a subconscious reason for the filmmakers to want to have each of these scenes. As such, the film works more as a psychoanalysis of the filmmakers than as a psychoanalysis of a certain character. The film itself is evidence of the filmmakers and why they'd put a film together in this particular way.

Another interesting fact that fits in is the "reality" of this surrealistic film. The film is surrealistic in the order of its scenes, but with very few exceptions, each of the scenes themselves is pretty realistic. The film even has a realistic look. The sets and objects of the film are identical to the ones that would exist in real life. This is evidence that the filmmakers live in the real world, and are thus aware of the true physical laws that everyone has to follow.

The film doesn't make any sense as a whole, but it is rather a series of individual scenes, each of which reveals a subconscious trait of the filmmakers.