Surrealist Film Summary (BSA 106)

SURREALIST FILM

Surrealism constitutes European artistic or cultural movement and first started back then in the 1920s. Paintings, literature, and cinema are the most popular media that we could find in surrealism. Surrealism evolved from Dada (nonsensical word) which means protest against everything. Dada was anti art, anti rational, and sometimes humorous.

Andre Breton was the founder of the surrealist movement and he drafted the Surrealist Manifesto as well. As a major member of the Dada Group, Andre first founded the movement in 1924 and declared surrealism as "pure psychic automatism, by which an attempt is made to express, either verbally, in writing or in any other manner, the true functioning of thought. The dictation of thought, in the absence of all control by the reason, excluding any aesthetic or moral preoccupation". The movement itself uses shocking and absurd imagery to create more realistic outcome.

Surrealists film makers attempt to mix all of the plot, characters, and casuality in order to get rid of the conventional narrative forms. Their aim is to disrupt the meaning of the story plot, to make it disoriented, and make some shocking scenes.

From all films and animations of surrealism that had been shown in class, "Destino" is my favourite. This short animation film was made by Salvador Dali who made a contract with Walt Disney on 14th January 1946. Since there was a financial problem, Destino's production was delayed until 1999 when Walt Disney's nephew, Roy E. Disney completed it. What I really like in this short animation is the story plot is quite clear and easier to understand rather than the others. The characters are also interesting, which only focus on two main characters, a woman and a man.

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Picture References:

1. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-what-is-surrealism

2. http://heritagetalon.org/3543/entertainment/destino-2003-short-film-review/

3. youtube.com