Which 1929 film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí opens with a famous razor-and-eye scene?

Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s 1929 film Un Chien Andalou opens with a famous razor-and-eye scene. The silent black-and-white short uses startling images, abrupt transitions, and dreamlike logic instead of a conventional narrative.

Buñuel directed the film and collaborated with Dalí on its scenario. The opening sequence cuts between a cloud crossing the moon and a razor being drawn across an eye, creating a deliberately shocking visual association. The scene is often discussed as an attack on comfortable cinematic expectations.

The filmmakers aimed to avoid images that could be explained through ordinary psychology or symbolism. They reportedly rejected ideas that came from rational explanations and favored material linked to dreams, chance, and unconscious connections.

The film premiered in Paris in 1929 and lasts about sixteen minutes. Its title translates roughly as “An Andalusian Dog,” although the dog itself is not the central subject of the film.