Stumbled upon this on Wikipedia:
quote:
The British Board of Film Censors famously reported that the film was "so cryptic as to be almost meaningless. If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable"
I wonder if the fact that this was the work of a female director influenced people of that time to dismiss the importance of this particular piece.
Just with a little research we can find Dulac's political views about gender, thus for me is quite clear the intention behind this film, and perhaps we can have second guesses about the symbols used in it, but her questioning the church, the state and male sexuality and the positioning of women at that time was groundbreaking. Which is sad, because if not but that huge dismissal, this could be catalogued easily as the very first surrealist film of all times, BEFORE Buñuel-Dalí's 'A Chien Andalou' and don't get me wrong I enjoyed it, but even Buñuel stated that he didn't put any meaning behind it, it was just a dream put into film so why the double standard?
Loved the ideas behind The Seashell and the Clergyman, it was great to bump into this film, for it was an amusing discovery!
