L' Âge d'Or (Age of Gold) (The Golden Age) poster & wallpaper

Gaston Modot, Lya Lys

Bunuel's first feature has more of a plot than Un Chien Andalou, but it's still a pure Surrealist film, so this is only a vague outline. A man and a woman are passionately in love with one another, bu...( read more  read more... )t their attempts to consummate that passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, the Church and bourgeois society.

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84% liked it

4,744 ratings

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Directed by: Luis Buñuel

Release Date: November 1, 1979

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DVD Release Date: November 23, 2004

Stats: 209 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (209)

  • SirPant
    October 2, 2009
    SirPant
    A film of pure madness, surrealism and brilliance. I didn't enjoy it as much as its younger brother, Un Chien Andalou, but it has quite a few of my very favourite scenes in cinema within it. The guy who shoots himself and ends up on the ceiling is fantastic! As far as collaborati...( read more)ons go, it doesn't get much better than Dali & Bunuel!
  • ohagankieran
    August 4, 2009
    ohagankieran
    not as good as un chien andalou but less confusing
  • rubystevens
    October 22, 2008
    rubystevens
    hilarious surrealist satire buñuel made with dali in 1930. of course they were completely mad and this film was banned for 50 years. highly recommended for fans of un chien andalou.
  • bennytheclown
    October 1, 2006
    bennytheclown
    How i love thee! Correct me if i'm wrong but isn't the main dude the groundskeeper in Renoir's La Regle de jeu?
  • cacutshaw
    February 23, 2007
    cacutshaw
    Un Chien Andalou's closest kin, this is like a feature length version of that film. Excellent.
  • ElCochran90
    October 21, 2009
    ElCochran90
    "A lover of darkness, it burrows under stones to escape the glare of the sun. Antisocial, it ejects the intruder on its solitude. Such lightning strikes, such virtuosity in attack! Even a rat, for all its fury, falls prey to it."

    L'ÂGE D'OR (1930)
    ...( read more)>

    Director: Luis Buñuel
    Country: France
    Genre: Drama / Romance / Comedy / Fantasy
    Length: 63 minutes

    The Golden Age,Age of Gold,Luis Bunuel,Luis Buñuel,Surrealism


    One year ago (1929, that is), the world witnessed two highly important events in cinema history: the birth of cinematic surrealism and the rise of a genius. The title of the short film is Un Chien Andalou (1929) and the name of the master behind the camera is Luis Buñuel. Juxtaposing incongruent elements with extreme depictions of absurdity along with the vision of the famously unique artist Salvador Dalí, Buñuel decides to construct his first feature film, a landmark in surrealistic filmmaking. L'Âge d'Or ventures into the never-ending realm of the mind's subjectivity and the blaspheme world of the bourgeois class, an aspect that Buñuel would find rather funny during the upcoming four decades, turning it into a filmic habit. Its power and controversy have effectively stood the test of time and it still functions as the masterful work of an audacious machinist of sexual impulses and the morality decadence of man. Despite the huge criticism and the wide banning the film was subject to, Buñuel's first masterpiece has been revived and disseminated through the world as a reminder of how expressive and talented cinema tended to be when the sound was even firstly introduced.

    L'Âge d'Or could be referenced as a virtually plot-less and incongruent film, although it mainly deals with a man and a woman who passionately love each other. However, they face problems with their respective families, the surrounding bourgeois society and the Catholic Church when they want to consummate their passion. The film is partially based on Marquis de Sade's "120 Days of Sodom", as clearly implied in a particular orgy sequence. The film was subject to heavy censorship and banning, periods that lasted almost 50 years, such as in France, Australia and Portugal.

    Despite being amateurishly shot, cinema itself was in its earliest stages. Surrealism is a cinema branch that has been under constant renovation, innovation and even intentional degradation, thus creating other forms of imaginative visual expressions. For Luis Buñuel, cinema was a cathartic instrument through which he could express ideas that had to be either revealed or morally accepted under a conventional societal code. The main attack would be strictly aimed towards the privileged social classes who would drown in money and hide their stupid and pretentious personalities under false conducts of fanciness and etiquette. As if this scandalous idea, especially for the 30's, wasn't enough, he also throws in a groundbreaking criticism towards the Catholic Church as an institution, rather than insulting a particular religion. With these two huge monsters combined, the missing element is immediately added: a normal couple that is deeply in love. More than interpreting this couple as a rather simple symbolism of the standard citizen of any particular society, the main focus of L'Âge d'Or is the moral extermination of the human race through the blasphemous idolization of religious imagery and a very prophetic portrayal of sexual depravation.

    The film opens with a documentary segment of a scorpion, a living being that possesses five prismatic articulations that culminate in a sting. Then, the scorpion proceeds to commit suicide with its own poisonous sting. Are we humans so different, possessing five extremities including the arms, the legs and our twisted heads that originate the ideas of a literal assassination of our own kind? We are reduced to an almost insignificant being that can pass unnoticed, but the truth is divided in layers. On one hand, we have religion, on the other hand, we have a ludicrously wealthy society, and on top of the head we have an atheistic science that denies the real existence of God. All of these elements intertwine in an explosive orgy of bad manners, masturbation, kissing of a religious statue, cadavers and ridiculous suppers, not to mention the Duc de Blangis and his physical resemblance of Christ. Sexual repression is an imminent factor in the development of the events, consequently showing a rather excruciating conclusion if the final sequence is deeply analyzed.

    Love is not the principal motor. There is no motor whatsoever. What keeps the engine of the plot running is its spoof nature. To fully comprehend the film, one must understand that the film is an ultimate spoof of every degrading and insulting defect of the world we live in and how, when shown to our very faces, the result is rejection. Why was the film banned by Fascists? Why were Judaism, masonry and revolutionary sectarianism immediately blamed? The answer is rejection. Another answer is hypocrisy. And yet another answer is pride. If the film was not supposed to provide an utterly cathartic feeling to a particular audience, then the outcome came from the very minds of the conservatives. Perhaps Buñuel never intended to insult; he let the scenes of the film to be interpreted in any way the world wanted them to be. Can the consequences of such open-minded attitude be so strong? Naturally, they can. They were. Just like Un Chien Andalou (1929), L'Âge d'Or raped social standards and raised necessary questionings about the people's latter conduct. After all, not a single person can deny its high sensibility, the characteristic that identify us as supposedly rational and emotional beings. The power of this testament was not properly executed because of the particular perspective it was seen with, but Luis Buñuel cannot fully be blamed.

    Whereas Jean Conteau's (Le Sang d'un Poète [1930]) surrealist vision abounded in theatrical poetry and occasionally quiet delicacy, Luis Buñuel was far more aggressive and expressed his liberal ideas with an anarchic style while slapping the cheeks of much bigger societal entities. Those are the main reasons that make his first feature film a timeless masterwork of the surrealism genre. It has no scruples and there are no strings attached. The film opens, shows, laughs, shocks and puts the "The End" title on the screen. One could say this is the process that life itself should assimilate, according to this magnificent auteur. It easily belongs to the greatest films ever made and the overall visual style and an elegant cinematography, accompanied by a jovial music, make of this mindless journey a delicious piece of insanity to taste.

    100/100
  • HuskersNC949597
    June 10, 2009
    HuskersNC949597
    OK, Bunuel, the bourgeoisie = BAAAAD. If you're so damn smart, how come you're dead?
  • madamadore
    May 11, 2009
    madamadore
    Che gioia! Che gioia, avere assassinato i nostri figli!
  • ifeels1ck
    January 30, 2009
    ifeels1ck
    Bunuel and Dali's controversial interpretations of infidelity and religion.
  • Soundsofmadness
    January 10, 2009
    Soundsofmadness
    No thankyou - Not interested.

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