Experimental Film Exam Response: Un Chien Andalou, Le Jetee and Meshes of the Afternoon

'Experimental Film requires a different kind of spectatorship.' Has this been your experience? [35]

Experimental films are full of strange mixtures of images, situations, words and expressions that may not tell a cohesive story but, in the end, don't have to in order to achieve an emotional goal. This type of film therefore requires the spectator to shift their conventional cinematic expectations to accommodate more radical narrative techniques, themes and meaning construction. 

Un Chien Andalou, the infamous 1929 surrealist short film from Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, attests to this. 
I think that this film was very strange in the terms of having no narrative, and this made it quite difficult to watch. After watching it for the second time, I then understood the constant use of repetition and the referral to the box and the ants in the male's hand. The themes of the film were religion, with the reference to the hole in the hand like Jesus, taboo topics with the nudity of the female character, and generally being about being in a dream-like state. This film makes you think about things featured in the film and makes you ask questions. Parts of the film are quite disturbing to watch such as the eye cutting scene and when the female's armpit hair ends up over the male character's mouth. The thought of your eye being severed by a blade makes me cringe and I find this difficult to watch. The title of the film makes no sense either once translated to English and this shows me that the film is going to be quite surreal and odd. I do like the film because it makes me experience different emotions and I like the surreal style. Some of the film explores the relationship between men and woman with men and woman dressed up as the opposite sex. This is meant to show that men don't understand women and this is also a theme in some of the other experimental films I have watched. I like the idea of having no diegetic sound because this then emphasises the film being an art form and visual medium. Parts of the film are quite shocking but over this is a very interesting film to watch.

Chris Marker became known internationally for the short film La Jetée (1962). It tells of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel by using a series of filmed photographs developed as a photomontage of varying pace, with limited narration and sound effects. I think that this film is a very good example of experimental film because it is a completely different style and it's one that I've never seen before. As a fan of science fiction films, I can see the relationship that modern day sci-fi has to La Jetée and I can also see similar themes such as having no way of changing time due to the paradox. This theme can also be seen in films such as Terminator. There is a narrative to this story and this is something which is not common in experimental films. The film relates to time and in some parts it looks like a time lapse, as if the male lead is dreaming about time travel instead of participating in it. There is a non-diegetic voice over featured in this film to narrate what is happening in the photographs. The photographs that make up the film symbolise that time doesn't move and memories, which is the fuel for the time travel, are simply just mental photos. The film explores dreaming versus  reality and this makes you question whether things are real. This is mentioned during the narration when he says 'real birds, real cats'. La Jetée also relates to the film Minority Report, featuring Tom Cruise with the reference to the covering of the eyes. There is the small section of the film where the woman blinks and because the film is made up of images, I wondered whether I actually saw it. This challenges my perceptions and this is the impact I think the filmmaker wanted to create and it confused me slightly. In the film, the male protagonist sees his own death as a young boy due to the paradox and this has certainly influenced modern sci-fi films because I have seen a similar narrative before watching this. Technical skills in this film include dissolves and fading as well as panning and zooming into and around the images. This makes the film seem more like a motion film instead of being made up of still frames. In total, I like this film because it has very clever ways of portraying the themes and it is an early sci-fi film, which is my favourite genre of film.

Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is a work that maintains all of the mystery, tranquility, unpredictability, and personal attachment that is ever present within the world of dreams. I think that this film is very well made and I understood quite a lot of it, despite it being experimental. The main theme for this film is to show woman's perceptions of men's interpretations of the female gender. This is shown by a black figure, which is seen throughout the film, who has a mirror for a face. This is a symbol for the female's perception as this figure represents men. As this film was made by a female director, feminism is a huge factor in this film. In the 1940's, female directors weren't really seen, as they were ideally 'stay-at-home mothers'. Maya Deren decided to then make this film with these themes to speak out on behalf of women. I think that the non-diegetic sound in this film is very annoying and this made the film very difficult to watch. The music is made up of somebody tapping a drum in different tempos and a slightly annoying wind instrument. It is quite high-pitched and this is what gives discomfort while watching this film. Another theme of this film is sleeping and being in a dream-like state. This is what attracted me to like the film, as I like things based on dreams. There is a fade of an image, with a shot of Deren's eye closing, which represents the process of falling asleep. Then, a time-lapse of Deren asleep follows and this shows that dreams don't really have a concept of time. A knife and a key are two recurring objects in this film and this relates to the theme. The knife represents a dagger on the male's perceptions of women, and these perceptions involve the 'mother' role, which typically involves keys to look after the home. After thinking about these representations once I watched the film, I really liked the whole idea of using subtle objects like this to replace other messages being portrayed in the film. Meshes of the Afternoon has gone on to inspire music video's such as Muse's Supermassive Black Hole, which involves similar figures with mirrors for faces. In total, I really like this film because I agree with the themes and the feminist issues, and I think that the symbolism in the sequence is very effective.