You can only enjoy Warhol’s Empire if you have 8 hours, this one only takes 16 minutes.
The movie opens up with an intertitle written in French which roughly translates as “Once upon a time”. What follows is a series of shocking and to some degree disturbing imagery with no plot. I can explain the graphics in this writing, but I’m afraid that would ruin your experience, unless you’ve already watched this “movie” off course.
Well, I can talk about technical stuffs like that the film is made by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali, the godfather of surrealist art himself and what kind of practical effect and camera techniques used but that would be boring wouldn’t it? So let’s just talk about my experience as an artistically impaired person after watching this movie.
Well, to be honest the film is not technically superb, even for 1929 standard. It has that low budget feel and some might see that calling it art is only a defense for the lack of the movie’s technical imperfection. The plot is well, non-existent, so there’s not much to talk about there and yet surprisingly, the film was one of the most enjoyable 16 minutes of my life.
This movie, is not really for the faint-hearted, or date nights. It is best enjoyed with a bowl of instant noodles, a cup of cheap instant-coffee and some clove cigarettes at 2AM in the morning. Frankly this movie, at least for me, doesn’t spark any significant emotion, maybe a slight surprise, and a slight joy here and there, but it kept me interested for the whole 16 minutes. Maybe, just maybe, this movie is the perfect movie for us, the artistically impaired, to finally enjoy art in our very limited span of attention.
-Oedjang, 2018
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