Surrealism

Eye slitting scene in Un chien andalou. 
An example of Surrealism film

One of the two alternatives for Classic Hollywood Style (see my post about Classic Hollywood Style here.) in the French Film Industry is Surrealism. The other is French Impressionism (see my post about Impressionism here.) While French Impressionism worked inside the French film industry, Surrealism, on the other hand, worked outside the industry, the Surrealists screening their works in artists' gatherings.

Usually disturbing, Surrealism is said to be directly linked to Surrealism in literature and painting. According to André Breton,  "Surrealism [was] based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of association, heretofore neglected, in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirected play of thought." Surrealism is influenced by Freudian psychology.  Automatic writing and painting, the search for bizarre or evocative imagery, the deliberate avoidance of rationally explicable form or style-these became features of Surrealism as it developed in the period 1924-1929. (Bordwell & Thompson, 2008 p. 452) Luis Buñuel became the most popular filmmaker of Surrealism. 

Surrealist cinema is overtly anti-narrative. Many surrealist films tease us to find a narrative logic that is simply absent. Causality is a dream. We find events juxtaposed for their disturbing effect. (Bordwell & Thompson, 2008 p. 452) Character psychology is nonexistent in Surrealist films. Surrealists hope that the free form of the film would arouse the deepest impulses of the viewer. (Bordwell & Thompson, 2008 p. 453)

Plot is not present in Surrealist films. They can jump from one scene to another without any justified reasons. They are illogical and nonsensical. You will often find yourself thinking what is going on in the film. And most of the time, they are horrific and terrifying.

The style of Surrealist cinema is eclectic. Mise-en-scene is often influenced by Surrealist painting. Discontinuous editing is also commonly used to fracture any organized temporal spatial coherence.Surrealist film style refused to canonize any particular devices, since that would order and rationalize what had to be an "undirected play of thought." (Bordwell & Thompson, 2008 p. 453)

Surrealism movement ended in 1930. 

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Source:

Bordwell, D. & Thompson, K. (2008) French Impressionism and Surrealism (1918-1930) In Film Art: An Introduction (8th ed., pp. 452-453) New York: McGraw-Hill