The first shock film? That's one possible interpretation. There is no plot so nothing really makes much sense beyond the dreamlike sense that we affix to anything that we don't immediately comprehend. This was the point though as Director Luis Bunuel was opposed to any interpretation of his work having any meaning or symbolism applied to it. A series of random imagery, the best known being a straight razor slicing across an eyeball, that leaves the viewer feeling nothing but uneasy right from the start in the off-beat weirdness of it all. Also features ants crawling out of a stigmata-like wound, a severed hand, dead animals, a deaths-head moth and various other odd things that randomly show up with no rhyme or reason. Not being an expert on the surrealist movement or Sigmund Freud I can't comment on the influence those things had on this film other than knowing that all these things are intertwined here in one way or another. There's an added creepy factor in knowing that the two main actors in this thing both ended up committing suicide. Check it out if you have any interest in bizarre cinema.
and they say H.G. Lewis started the gore flick
ReplyDeleteWell there have always been obscure artsy type films that dabbled in blood, gore and sex but they didn't play in too many drive ins or get the exposure of Lewis' stuff. They also wouldn't appeal to the average gore-hound anyway.
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