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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The film that started it all..., October 17, 2001
This review is from: Un Chien Andalou / Land Without Bread [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Without the Luis Bunuel/Salvador Dali collaboration UN CHIEN ANDALOU, there might well have been no PINK FLAMINGOS, no ERASERHEAD, no Pasolini or Godard or Polanski etc. etc. etc., at least not the way we know and love them. Bunuel was once called the "Alfred Hitchcock of the Avant-Garde". Although most of what critics say makes as much sense to me as stereo instructions might to a Mayan tribesman, I have to say that that's pretty accurate; no one delved so deeply into the subconscious on-camera so successfully and so gleefully. And this is the film that started it all. Infamous eyeball-slicing aside (if such a notion is plausible), there is alot to be marvelled and shocked by. Of course, this isn't going to cause a riot (as it most assuredly did when it premiered in Paris in 1928... everyone, I'm sure, knows the story about Bunuel presiding over the record player that would supply the film's soundtrack at the film's premiere, his pockets filled with rocks), but it still packs a surprising nihilistic wallop after more than 70 years. I'm not going to reveal any of what you will see. It should suffice though, to tell you, that after these 20 or so minutes are over, you'll realize you've seen probably the closest cinematic approximation to a dream EVER produced. EVER. Viva Bunuel!...
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
video quality poor, October 10, 2001
This review is from: Un Chien Andalou / Land Without Bread [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I assume if you're buying this, you know what you're getting. What the other reviews don't mention is that this is a poor quality video. Granted, you don't expect a silent film to look like last week's Tom Hanks favorite, but my copy of this product looked like it had been through an x-ray machine. No subtitles on Un Chien (though you don't really need them). Hope this helps you make you're purchase decision.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'Land Without Bread' might be Bunuel's masterpiece, May 1, 2004
This review is from: Un Chien Andalou / Land Without Bread [VHS] (VHS Tape)
'Un chien andalou' (1928) is the best-known film on this video and is a fascinating work in its own right, but the real masterpiece here is undoubtedly 'Land Without Bread' ('Las Hurdes'). As great as most of Bunuel's subsequent films would be, this 27-minute 1932 work arguably towers above them all. Calling it a documentary would not do justice to its unrivaled breadth: among other things, this film asks the questions 'what is a documentary?' and 'what is the role of the documentarist?', and this prevents us from using definitive, short-circuiting labels. In fact, no label could conceivably express this film's power. The controversy surrounding this work has three main sources: 1) some of the sequences have apparently been staged by Bunuel; 2) the impersonal narration seems in direct contrast to the pain and tragedy that unfolds on the screen; 3) so is Bunuel's choice of using Brahms's Fourth symphony as background music. For these reasons, cinephiles have been disagreeing for over 70 years about Bunuel's treatment of human and animal misery in this film. For me, his audacious technique creates a space - a window - between the viewer and the plight of the Hurdanos; it is this space that somehow transfigures their misery, rather than merely exploit it (as some have suggested). The film becomes a true initiation for the viewer: it provides a difficult, troubling but potentially life-changing experience. In the end, Bunuel's intentions do not matter as much as the impact his film can have on those who see it; and for this viewer, he has carved a moving, mysterious and ineffable work.
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