L’âge d’or

Dream and reality, the imaginary and the unconscious can be described as key themes in the work of the Spanish-Mexican director Buñuel. His first two films—in a certain sense, manifestos of Surrealism—set the tone, so to speak, and relied on shock value; the razor blade slicing through an eyeball in UN CHIEN ANDALOU remains deeply unsettling. The visual and audio worlds of L’ÂGE D’OR—skeletons in bishop’s robes, crude insults hurled at passersby, a cow on a bed, murdered children, or crucified toupees—remain provocative to this day. The subversive metaphors and symbols that Buñuel and his co-author Salvador Dalí found for the repressive social order and rigid sexual morality of the time attracted the censors.

Supporting short: Un chien andalou Luis Buñuel France 1929 DCP French OV/Engl. ST 25 Min.