Un Chien andalou is an essential work from many standpoints: sureness in the mise-en-scène, skillful lighting, perfect understanding of the visual and ideological associations, solid dream logic, admirable comparison between subconscious and rational. When considered in terms of its social theme, Un Chien andalou is a precise and courageous film. (…) An Andalusian dog is howling, but who died? Our sense of apathy, that leads us to accept all the monstrosities committed by man in the world, is put to the test when we cannot stand the onscreen sight of a female eye cut in two by a razor. But is that a more frightening sight than a cloud concealing a full moon? That is the prologue; and we must admit that it does not leave us cold. It assures us that this film is about seeing with different eyes than usual, if you can say that. (…) M. Buñuel is a good swordsman, and he doesn’t know how to fake it. A stab at the macabre ceremonies, at the last ablutions of a being that is no longer, of which only dust remains. A stab at whoever stained love with violence. A stab at sadism, whose most secret form consists in curiosity. And let’s pull on the rope of Morality we put around our neck. Let’s see what’s on the other side. A cork, at least that’s a topic with a certain weightiness. A bowler hat, poor bourgeois. Two brothers from the Christian School, poor Christ. Two grand pianos, full of carcasses and excrement, poor hypersensitivity. And to finish, a jackass in the foreground, as planned. Monsieur Buñuel is terrible. They must be ashamed, they who in their youth killed what they could have been, which they now seek along the beach where the sea flings back our memories and regrets, until it becomes parched of what we are when the spring comes. Cave canem… Beware of the dog, it bites.

Jean Vigo, “Vers un cinéma social”, 1930