There is a reason why the 1920s are considered one of the best decades for French art – it was a renaissance of sorts in all areas, including literature, visual arts and music. Cinema was not lagging far behind, and while Hollywood was making the most substantial leap towards it becoming one of the primary forms of artistic expression, France was not lacking in works of sheer ingenuity. One of the elements that separates them is the more prominent development of the movement that would come to be known as Surrealism, which many consider to have its roots in French art from this period, or at least in terms of how it infiltrated cinema. Luis Buñuel’s An Andalusian Dog contains some of the most enduring imagery in the history of cinema – but there was an even earlier work that is doubly as impressive, both in terms of form and content, and which inadvertently contributed to a steadily growing movement defined by its incredulity towards conventions, and instead was built on the desire to challenge popular concepts of art. The Seashell and the Clergyman (French: La Coquille et le Clergyman), directed by Germaine Dulac and created in conjunction with a small coterie of surrealists that defined the Parisian art scene at the time, the film is a free-form experiment that leaps between logic and absurdity with such incredible precision, becoming one of the most visually-striking works of the 1920s, and a film that influenced a lot of later cinema, at least in terms of the imagery created by the director and her collaborators.

Much like postmodernism (which emerged as a direct response to this movement, almost as if it was aiming to develop on its major tenets by filtering them through the lens of mid-century social commentary), surrealism is a difficult concept to define, let alone describe in the context of a particular work. The line between a truly effective surrealist work and one that is simply an array of images thrown together in disarray is very narrow, and very easy to cross without realising it, especially since there is a general perception that surrealism equates to a lack of narrative, or one that simply doesn’t make sense. The French surrealists had a very distinct perspective, and while cinema was not quite at the point where they could fully expand on their ideas, they had a strong foundation on which to build stories that are bewitching and compelling. For them, surrealism was the act of subversion, the process of acknowledging the status quo and directly contradicting it, albeit through methods that may not have been subtle, but are not easily deciphered. Dulac had built a solid career as an artist, and in helming this film, which was crafted as almost a collective effort with many of her fellow artists, she aims to take conventions and turn them around entirely. It’s not the kind of surrealism that is all that satirical in the traditional sense, but there is a socio-cultural element that proves to be a snapshot of dominant perceptions of French society at the time, which was almost always the target of these wildly inventive artists.

Dulac was relatively well-established by the time The Seashell and the Clergyman was produced, and along with Alice Guy-Blaché, she was a pioneer of female-directed cinema, something that would not become commonplace in Hollywood or other markets for quite some time. Dulac collaborates with several of her peers to craft this film, primarily working closely with playwright Antonin Artaud, whose work would later come to be credited under what he labelled Theatre of Cruelty, which is less about actors telling a story, and more focused on a group of artists drawing out a reaction from their audience, who they viewed as equally as responsible for a work of theatre taking its shape. These theories, which would only come to be developed fully in later years as Artaud became more established, are very much present in The Seashell and the Clergyman, which is almost entirely plotless. Outside of an opening quote that gives us a rough idea of the milieu and intentions of this film, there isn’t much of a storyline, with Dulac curating several scenes that are mostly disjointed, connected only by a loose thread that is defined as being the erotic fantasies of a priest who finds his faith called into question when he begins to lust after a woman connected to quite a prominent military leader. Arguably, this context is gleaned mostly from knowing what the film set out to achieve, since its very difficult to discern this as the overall meaning from the film itself – but some elements are very insightful and quite scathing to subjects such as religious doctrine and social structure, and the fact that it was helmed by a woman only adds layers of detail to something that addresses issues of gender, long before they were frequently found in art.

Yet, once we set aside our desire to always have the answers to the questions posed by certain works of art, it’s possible to actually find merit in the act of simply surrendering to the madness and chaos that defines a film such as this. The Seashell and the Clergyman is a film driven mostly by images more than anything else, and even if we disregard the lack of a clear storyline (which was intentional, so it should not be cited as a shortcoming), we find ourselves entirely transfixed by the visual component. Surrealist art was massively aided by the peak of silent cinema – suddenly, a plot became almost secondary, and the focus shifted towards the images shown on screen. The innovation shown throughout the film is remarkable, and as we saw in global cinema at the time, the inventive measures to which filmmakers would go to overcome the lack of sound are astounding. The effects are simple by modern standards, but for a film produced nearly a century ago, the innovation on show is incredible. The best method is simply to allow the film to take us on this journey, which is extremely peculiar and very off-kilter, but hypnotic in a way that makes us abandon any desire to rationalise what we are seeing. There comes a point midway through The Seashell and the Clergyman where we are either mesmerized to the point of being in a daze, or entirely enraptured and stimulated by the fascinating imagery – and in either case, we’re thoroughly engaged, which proves just how effective the most simple images can be when arranged in an order that provokes us to look deeper and question our own reality, a fundamental component of surrealism and its pioneers.

In much the same way that German Expressionism and Russian Realism were the main exports of European arthouse cinema and continue to be extremely influential, French Surrealism is a movement that has impacted a lot of how contemporary films have been made, even if it isn’t as widely discussed. Many elements of this film feel extremely influential and quite insightful, and while it may be difficult to decode exactly what is being meant at different points, it is, overall, a complex, invigorating work of pure surrealism, in terms of being bold and daring and refusing to adhere to conventions in any discernible way. Dulac is not spoken about widely, and mostly is viewed as a remnant of this period, rather than being a highly influential and extraordinarily talented artist in her own right. Yet, there are growing efforts to bring this film to wider audiences, and while it may remain as bewildering today as it was 96 years ago, its still an impressive piece of cinema that provokes a reaction through playfully manipulating all of our senses, leading us down a perilous artistic path in which nothing quite makes sense, but we are nonetheless entirely transfixed by what is occuring on screen. Daring and provocative, and deeply unnerving at the same time, The Seashell and the Clergyman remains one of the defining works of the early Surrealist movement, and generally just a terrific film in every way.