The Golden Age (1930) User Reviews

Delicious Ahead-of-its-Time Black Comedy

[Ben_Cheshire · 7/10 · 29 February 2004]

At least sixty years ahead of its time. This collection of surreal scenes satirising every possible social value you can think of and revelling in anything considered by the aristocrats to be vulgar was made with a delicious sense for black comedy, a taste for which would not become socially acceptable for sixty years. This movie caused riots on its first release in 1930, and was banned for forty years. If you see this on the program to be shown at an art gallery near you, like i did, you won't regret seeing it. Think of it as Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel sticking their finger up at everything everyone else takes seriously, and laughing at their being offended. Seventy years later, the art gallery audience i was with were laughing along with Bunuel and Dali. This is about the most modern feeling thing you'll see from early cinema. I'll give you a sample: a couple are such nymphomaniacs, whenever they see each other, they can't stop from leaping on each other and writhing on the ground together. At one point in the movie, they are kissing, and all of a sudden he sees the foot of a statue behind her and is distracted by its beauty. He becomes dazed and zoned on the foot. She pulls away from him, tries to talk to him, he holds his hand up to her face as if to say: "hang on, just give me a minute." Then he feels compelled to leave her. Left on her own, mourning her momentary separation from her lustful partner, she begins sucking on the toes of the statue, as she was sucking on the fingers of her love a few scenes before. Camera cuts to a close-up of the statue's face, as if to check its reaction. The entire audience broke up at this. It was all too much. An absolute riot which can only be appreciated today as taking the p*ss out of every form of conservatism you can imagine.

WARNING= it is at times disturbing. If you are at all feint-hearted, and can not separate movies from reality, especially surrealist movies from reality, then stay away.

strange but fascinating

[awblundell · 7/10 · 7 August 2002]

Is this film years ahead of it's time or did it just take the rest of us thirty years to catch up!

First let me say that I have not seen many films of this era and am reviewing this from the point of view of a modern filmgoer.

The film consists of four or five distinct sections which on first watching seem pretty tenuously linked. This and the surreal images which abound make me feel like I am watching a very grainy Monty Python show. The lead character even looks a bit like John Cleese.

A strong anti-religious theme comes through, directly in the rough treatment of priests whenever they appear, or more subtly in the comments about Rome.

*** spoiler warning ***

They occur most strongly in the final section where we are informed that the evil leader of a depraved group of men is about to leave his chateau after 120 days of debauchery, and a messianic figure emerges....

The scene in the garden is stunningly erotic. Modern picture makers should take note on how this affect can be achieved without feeling the need to show more than a shapely ankle.

I said at the start of this review that I hadn't seen many films of this era. Perhaps I should correct this omission.

Startling; hilarious; still a minor masterwork.

[FilmSnobby · 8/10 · 18 December 2004]

Hats off, definitely, to Kino Video, for not caring less about the bottom line and releasing *L'Age d'Or* on DVD for the cineaste's consumption. (The picture still looks awful, but I doubt it would've looked much better even if Criterion had bothered with it -- this movie, after all, was nearly destroyed forever in 1930!) The above-mentioned cineastes and other devotees of Luis Bunuel will, of course, snap this DVD up; but what can *L'Age d'Or* offer to the merely curious or to those who are willing to broaden their cultural intake? Hilarity, primarily: the movie, almost incredibly, still generates at least a half-dozen belly laughs by presenting vignettes that are sublimely absurd and bracingly offensive. Bunuel and Salvador Dali take their Surrealist picks and shovels and dig into the audience's nasty, wiping-boogers-on-the-walls subconsciousness in a manner that has hardly been imitated, let alone bettered. (Well, Ken Russell tried it, but his movies are boorish.) *L'Age d'Or* doesn't tell a story so much as it blasts the trendy Fascism in Europe at the time it was made. At the outset, we have to endure Bunuel's obligatory fascination with bugs -- in this particular case, scorpions, which serve as a convenient symbol for human beings yadda yadda yadda. But the movie really gets going when artist Max Ernst leads a derelict platoon of warriors straight out of Sir John Falstaff's army on a mission to wipe out a bunch of bishops. Cinema has rarely shown futility and sheer tiredness in such a funny way.

But, as you'd might expect from a pair of demented Surrealists, the movie veers off toward a whole series of non sequiturs. *L'Age d'Or* eventually decides to be about repressed sexuality: we're introduced to a pair of lust-maddened lovers, writhing and drooling all over each other in the dust during some sort of civic ceremony purporting to open a new "golden age". The police and other good "bourgeoisie" separate the horny pair: the Man (Gaston Modot, who film snobs will recognize as the jealous gamekeeper in Renoir's *Rules of the Game*) gets dragged off to modern-day Rome, but he easily eludes his captors and winds up at a fancy party of a decadent Duke who happens to be the father of the object of his lust. He reunites with the Woman, but not before slapping the hell out of her mother, who has made the unforgivable mistake of accidentally spilling some liqueur on his coat sleeve. . . .

Look -- one can't "summarize the plot" of this madness; one can only mention his or her favorite moments. My personal favorite: when a father blows his own annoying kid away with a hunting rifle. Then, after the kid's obviously dead, he shoots the poor little bugger again, and the force of the bullet shoves the body out of the camera's frame. What can I say -- I find this sort of thing funny. Most will not, undoubtedly. But I think everyone can appreciate the fevered eroticism on display when the Man and the Woman reunite in the Duke's garden. When they're not sucking on each other's fingers (jamming their hands into each other's mouths as if their mouths were jelly jars), they're sucking on the toes of an expressionless marble statue (the Bunuelian obsession with feet was life-long). This is all weird and funny, but it does tie in with Bunuel's original point, which is that we're as driven by appetites as your average scorpion. Fidelity is something we force on ourselves. Bunuel and Dali, playing with symbols, are free to make their characters free of constraint.

Despite the anything-goes ethos of the film, it's still hard for modern audiences to understand why it caused such a stir 75 years ago. The images are startling, discreetly pornographic even, but hardly beyond the pale. But the movie was banned within weeks, and Bunuel was virtually exiled to Mexico in the aftermath. (Dali, a cunning survivor, disavowed the film soon after its release.) Can it be that Bunuel and Dali brought all this trouble on themselves simply by making fun of rich people and bourgeois conventions? The answer is apparently Yes. No doubt, the cretins who run the current government in the United States would've empathized with those long-ago Fascist arbiters of good taste who attempted to destroy this movie forever. After all, who's richer or more bourgeois than the Bush Administration?

Yeah -- as long as religious hypocrites exist, there shall always be a place for Bunuel's *L'Age d'Or*, all right. 8 stars out of 10.

The Truest Love Story Ever Told!

[findkeep · 10/10 · 22 February 2002]

Just a few days prior to viewing "L'Age d'Or," I had sketched out a few of my views on Surrealism, and will begin by complimenting this review with them...

"Possibly the most accurate description of surrealism came from film director Luis Bunuel when he called it `a rape to the conscious.' This is how it is, and how it should be, for it is a form of art that forces the spectator into the paradoxical mind state that is surrealism. To view a document of surrealism is to be simultaneously repulsed and delighted. As such, this is surrealism: the blending of two or more contradictory emotions to form one emotion divorced from logic. There can not realistically be a like or dislike of a piece of pure surrealist art, for to like or dislike something requires decision, and decision requires logic. Surrealism is an art form to be experienced purely on a visceral level, and not, as many rational forms of art, on an intellectual one. Likewise, the creation of surrealist art requires the subversion of the intellect, for it demands complete spontaneity, unsuppressed by ego or super-ego dictatorship. So in many ways surrealism is the most pure form of art."

If surrealism is the most pure example of art, then "L'Age d'Or" is the most pure example of cinema, perfectly fitting the requirements stated above. It is a delightfully subversive, ecstatically liberating, maddeningly offensive bid for individual freedom. And, most ironically, the truest love story ever told!

Though L'Age d'Or has a firmer plot line than "Un Chien Andalou," Bunuel's previous film, a 16 minute marvel, it is still more dreamlike. This is because while "Un Chien Andalou's" surrealist images are more contained, one bizarre image after another forming a barely apprehensible link, "L'Age d'Or's" are far more detached, because they jut awkwardly out of a noticeable plot line. Surrealism must accentuate the bizzare found in a perfectly normal situation, and while "Un Chien" does this, there is still very little normal in the film. Not to say that it is any less inspired than "L'Age d'Or," quite the contrary, but ironically, it is "L'Age d'Or's" use of plot that makes it all the more surreal.

The "plot" of "L'Age d'Or" is about how we compromise ourselves in the name of society, more specifically how we compromise our sexual desire. Whether the man and the woman, the centers of the film, trying desperately to overcome social obstacles to consummate their love, are actually in love is never made perfectly clear, but they do suffer the same barriers couples find in society today. The majority of the humor in the film comes from the ways its immortal couple disrespects this need to compromise, and the sexual misplacements that occur when they are forced to abide by it (the infamous toe fellatio scene is hysterically erotic). Another recurring idea is that society is built on this compromise, and due to it, is always lingering on the edge of madness.

Like he did with "Un Chien Andalou," in "L'Age d'Or" director Bunuel disrupts rational time and space continuum to satisfy his own flights of fancy. In an early sequence, a group of people, dressed in contemporary 30's clothing, step off some historic looking ships to lay the first stone of what is to be Imperial Rome. We then cut to Rome in it's contemporary glory, where we find the people looking no different, and the main character's, seen during the previous scene, not really looking any older. What is Bunuel trying to say with this scene? That things do not really ever change. Maybe he's just once again indulging in the beauty of the irrational.

The beauty of the irrational... That was something Bunuel clung to throughout his career, but it was never again so evident, so pure as it was in the days of "L'Age d'Or." I spent a great deal of time searching for this little treasure, and now that I've found it, I have no regrets. Love it or hate it, love it and hate it, "L'Age d'Or" is the type of film that will never be made again. It is too alive with the possibilities of it's medium, too fresh to be reproduced. And too brilliant, audacious, and liberating to be topped.

Why would a father kill his son to prevent awkwardness?

[Dave-506 · 20 April 1999]

A representation of the effect on individuality within the paralysed surreal society of Bunuel's L'age D'or. (1930)

It was Bunuel and Dali's utter disdain of the Church that actually led the film to be banned for 49 years (released again in 1979). The absurd sacrament that proclaimed that, no matter how much in love a couple are, sex before marriage must always be forbidden. A small riot broke out on its initial release in 1930, due to the surreal scenes such as the anti-Catholic messages that a slide show projected. The Vatican is viewed from an aerial shot with the less than subtle message: `The ancient city of Rome / Mistress to Pagan Times.' The representation alone of Jesus as a murderous impostor in the last 25 minutes would have provoked extreme rage. The upper class culture was depicted as a race of people too sexually inhibited and frightened by their peers to explore Bunuel's revolutionary ideas: that in order to have your own mind you have to free yourself of the church and it's tightening grip. Bunuel's religious pessimism was caused by a strict regime of daily worship and a rigorous religious education in school. It forced him to have a unique perspective on religion where he probably conjured negative surrealist ideas and thoughts from his ‘surreal' days at school and the product is this very cinematic and authentic masterpiece. It is through this film where he becomes the teacher of his own beliefs, instead of being the educated, a medium that no longer required the audience to be told what to believe but to make up their own minds on their own accord as opposed to Catholicism. The Man and The Woman (Gaston Modot and Lya Lys as they are known) symbolises Bunuel's radical ‘sacrilegious' thinking and are his model couple. Contrasting the original Man and Woman, (Adam and Eve) to his carefully chosen archetypes, we have a greater knowledge about the director's surrealist tendencies and his interest in not the images but ideas they signify. When released it appeared to lack morals and the sexual innuendo and nature of the film was a topic of heated debate in 1930. We see the couple for the first time as they attempt to make love rolling around in the mud. This spontaneity was caused by the rare opportunity of having sex while the crowd (representing society) had its back turned. The public were too fascinated with a humorous commemoration of four holy men who humorously perished in the most meaningless fashion. The cultural variation of the crowd is significant however when compared to religion because their formation on screen represents the hierarchy in life. At the foreground we see the upper-classes with their bow ties, top hats and jewellery, the middle class are like the previous but without the aesthetics, and the working class are in the rather unsatisfactory background as in reality. The poor and ‘unimportant' have a less than adequate view from to what they've come to witness, and the rich take their perspective for granted. Perhaps a representation of the Church prefers an alliance with the rich (rather than the lower classes) by the inclusion of the priests at the forefront? The crowd is ignorant to the couple but is alerted by a few people at the back, the working class children (too small and insignificant deemed fit to share in the ‘glory' of this religious event). Young faces brighten up but sensing the displeasure from the upper classes and the pity of their own parents, the image changes from a look of glee to that of the irate bourgeois culture that Bunuel and Dali despise so much. Through the direction and the cinematography, old age and the upper classes are represented in The Man's dream as corrupted and poisoned, because they are simply jealous that the lovers had the sheer freedom to act in such a way (a group of archetypal actors and actresses theatrically shake their fists towards the couple). They are summarily separated and The Man is taken away by the police. This scene is extremely amusing because Bunuel and Dali (both co writers) are implying that society would imprison The Man for the most innocent of crimes: to be free and in love. The couple have to surpass the very obstacles that Bunuel faced in making the film: the church, society and even his or their own psychological problems. In a dream the goal is almost always impossible to reach due to the cruel pitfalls of society and thus life. There is one scene where a surreal sequence (a dream) shows how The Man unconsciously deals with the dawning realisation that society and religion are completely against him. It is his attempt to make love and express his general freedom where he feels unfairly paralysed from doing so. In the same moment we view the archetypal father figure shooting his son over a small offence in the garden. The camera is positioned to follow the father on his impending arrival towards home, he is walking on the dirt as the typical doting son senses his arrival and greets him. The father is smartly dressed wearing black with a rifle slung over his shoulder. The son is archetypal also in the scruffiness of his hair and clothes and his brazen and bold countenance. In this one scene, we establish that the boy represents how The Man feels about himself, he considers himself to be free, confident and blissfully content, it is his mind that perceives these images. The father figure however represents society that although seemingly friendly and assuring at first will severely punish the boy if he commits a sin. We have no idea that the rifle the father is carrying has significance, but it is an image of potential danger. The boy seeks comfort from his parent and on his father's knee he is hugged and kissed as the two are composed entirely central to shot. The Man's guilty conscience conjures a representation of natural harmony not between only father and son but equally between society and The Man. Society is metaphorically welcoming for The Man because it can offer nurture in times of angst. To have the desire to make love is distinctly personal, not sinful but natural in every respect. He feels trapped because in order to have sex with the one he loves, he must oppose the dominant ideologies in his life, his parents, the upper class society he belongs to and ultimately religion. The boy is conscious of the rifle (accusatory ammunition) but never once suspects it will be used on him because having a young perspective on life, he naturally feels slightly naïve but confident enough to challenge society's out dated values. We then see the father reciting something of importance to ‘his son'; society is saying to The Man if you must behave in a particular way, get married otherwise you will face damnation in this life and the next! He probably feels like a child because a symbolic parent is teaching him what he already knows but has actually chosen from his own free will to ignore what has been advised by his guilty conscience (that originates from religion). The boy (embodying The Man's feelings towards this patronisation) laughs at him, and hits an object from his father's hand to the floor. He runs off smiles, waves to camera and seeks refuge in the long grass in the garden. His father stares at the cherished item (the object of religious teaching - The Man's and the father's morals and values). He is angered to such an extent he instantly shoots the rifle not just once but twice into the poor boy's body.

Hey, a Buñuel film that I actually like!

[zetes · 7/10 · 7 September 2001]

Written on August 30th, upon my first viewing: I'm not saying that I love it, though. It's infinitely more watchable than the other two Buñuel "masterpieces" that I've seen, the execrably boring The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeosie and the somewhat lame Belle de Jour. I have been told time and time again to go back to his early stuff, that I'd be much more likely to enjoy those films. And those who pushed me were right. Of course, when I sat down to watch it, I didn't have the highest hopes. Immediately, I began to nitpick. "What is that supposed to mean?!?!" "What the heck is going on!?!?" My favorite three letters became, throughout the first half hour of this film, WT&F. But, as much as its narrative (or anti-narrative) was annoying me, its technical aspects were very much delighting me. The cinematography is quite good, the editing is fabulous and unique, and the use of sound is simply fantastic. Eventually, I just decided that the narrative wasn't supposed to make much sense and that Buñuel's purpose was anything but a storyteller. He was after the absurdist image and the absurdist mood. After that, I had a lot more fun and enjoyed it quite a bit. All good film watchers have to eventually train themselves away from depending on narrative. I'd still not call it a masterpiece, or even a great film, but it was very interesting and quite entertaining. I give it an 8/10. However, I do plan to rewatch it, since it is short and I do have it for another four days. Perhaps, now that I can watch it entirely prepared from the very beginning, I will raise that score.

Upon watching it the next day: Nope, sorry. I didn't get anything new the second time 'round. I still liked it as much, which is a huge compliment, but I certainly didn't like it more.

Like walking into Bunuel and Dalis' brains and going through the doors they have wide open

[Quinoa1984 · 9/10 · 3 January 2004]

Luis Bunuel was a filmmaker of great imagination and scathing wit, and Salvador Dali was a magnificent, albeit demented, artist and painter. Combined they made Un Chien Andalou (The Andalousian Dog), a short-film that somehow made it through the decades to reach another generation after another. This is because surrealism, the field they were working in, was one that could be endlessly creative. Surrealists could and still can captivate, startle, amuse, primarily provoke and/or even delight an audience by the story elements and images that come right out of fantasy, both on the bright and dark/bleak side of things. L'Age D'Or was a chance for Bunuel to go further, and if his goal was to enlighten the audience as well as to stir the s***storm, he succeeded.

In the first five to ten minutes of L'Age D'Or, I didn't know whether I knew exactly what was going on, or was totally boggled- the first images Bunuel puts forth are of scorpions (insects were one of his fascinations), and how they're shaped and how ferocious they can be. Then he cuts to some men who have guns by their side, walking through deserted rocks. THEN, after this, he cuts to a ship docking by the coastline where the guys with the guns were walking, and he never goes back to them again. Instead he focuses on one of the bourgeoisie men who is raping a woman, and who is dragged off into the imperial city. If you look at this story structure it doesn't seem to make sense - what is it that Bunuel and Dali are trying to get at here? It was when the rest of the story unfolded- with a particular bourgeoisie woman at a party who meets the man who was dragged off of the rocks- that I understood the logic I had first discovered in Un Chien Andalou and a later work of his, Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

Bunuel doesn't just toss a bunch of ideas together and think that it'll all make sense. In the thought process of a dream - one with light-hearted moments with romance and wonderful music, as well as terrifying moments like a cow on a bed or a man shooting his son in broad daylight - L'Age D'Or works like a kind of clockwork. Though the last ten five minutes of the film did throw me off almost completely, by then I didn't care. I knew that, overall, Bunuel accomplished his goals of making a film that hypnotizes, repulses, opens the eyes a little wider, and almost gets one cross-eyed. With his attacks on whatever was considered decent, straightforward art in cinema, both political, sociological, psychological, and personal, there are many messages to be seen in the work. However, when it's looked at as a whole, this is simply a work of art, one that has to be interpreted by the individual. Like one of Dali's paintings, one could view the work as nonsense, the work of an amateur mentally masturbating for the viewer. One could even see it as being rather entertaining when looking at the human elements that come through from the actors and the actions that take place. And one could see it as meaning so much that it will take another couple of viewings to "get" what was being said.

I turned off the movie feeling breathless, like being put through a washing machine of astonishing turns and emotions. At one point my jaw dropped, and then at the next point I smiled. To sum it up, I definitely want, and need, to see it again...one more note- this is a very, very hard film to find, one that has been kept out of circulation on video (it was also kept out of circulation in movie theaters for decades due to its controversies at the time of its release), but to seek it out is to take a chance that could equally pay off or disturb a particular viewer.

Strange film by two Spanish maestros of surrealism and abstraction , Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 8 November 2013]

Surrealism and sour attack upon religion by the Spanish master , the great Luis Buñuel .This is a typical Buñuel film , as there are a lot of symbolism and surrealism , including mockery or wholesale review upon religion, especially Catholicism . This film opens with a documentary on scorpions (this was an actual film made in 1912 which Luis Buñuel added commentary) ; later on , a man (Gaston Modot) and a woman (Lyla Lys) are passionately in love with one another, but their attempts to consummate that passion are constantly interrupted by their families, the Church and bourgeois society.

This is a strange and surrealist tale of a couple who are passionately in love , but their attempts to consummate it are constantly thwarted ; it is an absurd , abstract picture that was banned for over 50 years. This is the most scandalous of all Buñuel's pictures . It is packed with surreal moments , criticism , absurd situations and religious elements about Catholic Church ; furthermore Buñuel satirizes and he carries out outright attacks to religious lifestyle and Christian liturgy . Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both subversive behavior and religion , issues well shown in ¨Age of Gold¨. Here Buñuel makes an implacable attack to the Catholic church , theme that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career . It is surreal , dreamlike , and deliberately pornographically blasphemous . Buñuel made his first film , a 17-minute longtime short film titled "Un Chien Andalou" (1929), and immediately catapulted himself into film history thanks to its disturbing images and surrealist plot , the following year , sponsored by wealthy art patrons, he made his first picture , this scabrous witty and violent "Age of Gold" (1930), which mercilessly attacked the church and the middle classes . Buñuel's first picture has more of a script than ¨Un Chien Andalou¨ , but it's still a pure Surrealist flick . For various legal reasons, this film was withdrawn from circulation in 1934 by the producers who had financed the film and the US premiere was on 1 November 1979 . This film was granted a screening permit after being presented to the Board of Censors as the dream of a madman . However , on the evening of 3 December 1930, the fascist League of Patriots and other groups began to throw purple ink at the screen, then rushed out into the lobby of the theater, slashing paintings by Yves Tanguy, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, and Man Ray . This is an avant-garde collaboration with fellow surrealist Salvador Dali in which Buñuel explores his characteristic themes of lust , social criticism , cruelty, anti-religion , bizarre content , hypocrisy and corruption . This is an ordinary Buñuel film , here there are symbolism , surrealism , being prohibited on the grounds of blasphemy .

The motion picture was compellingly directed by Luis Buñuel who was voted the 14th Greatest Director of all time . This Buñuel's strange film belongs to his first French period ; he subsequently emigrated to Mexico and back to France where filmed other excellent movies . After moving to Paris , at the beginning Buñuel did a variety of film-related odd jobs , including working as an assistant to director Jean Epstein . With financial help from his mother and creative assistance from Dalí, he made his first film , this 17-minute "Un Chien Andalou" (1929), and subsequently ¨Age of Gold¨ . His career, though, seemed almost over by the mid-1930s, as he found work increasingly hard to come by and after the Spanish Civil War , where he made ¨Las Hurdes¨ , as Luis emigrated to the US where he worked for the Museum of Modern Art and as a film dubber for Warner Bros . He subsequently went on his Mexican period he teamed up with producer Óscar Dancigers and after a couple of unmemorable efforts shot back to international attention , reappearing at Cannes with ¨Los Olvidados¨ in 1951 , a lacerating study of Mexican street urchins , winning him the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival. But despite this new-found acclaim, Buñuel spent much of the next decade working on a variety of ultra-low-budget films, few of which made much impact outside Spanish-speaking countries , though many of them are well worth seeking out . As he went on filming "The Great Madcap" , ¨The brute¨, "Wuthering Heights", ¨El¨ , ¨Susana¨ , "The Criminal Life of Archibaldo De la Cruz" , ¨Robinson Crusoe¨ , ¨Death in the garden¨ and many others . His mostly little-known Mexican films , rough-hewn , low-budget melodramas for the most part , are always thought-provoking and interesting ; being ordinary screenwriter Julio Alejandro and Luis Alcoriza . He continued working there until re-establishing himself in Europe in the 1960s as one of the great directors . And finally his French-Spanish period in collaboration with producer Serge Silberman and writer Jean-Claude Carrière with notorious as well as polemic films such as ¨Viridiana¨ ¨Tristana¨ , ¨The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" , of course , ¨ ¨Belle Du Jour¨ , with all the kinky French sex and his last picture , "That Obscure Object of Desire" .

An outrageous but admirable piece of unrestricted creativity

[Afracious · 10/10 · 23 February 2000]

The great thing about Buñuel's films is they can be interpreted in different ways. This one focuses on a man's attempt to make love to a woman, which frustratingly for him always seems out of reach. He is grabbed by two men and lead around the streets, glaring into images which become animated. He is seeing his outcome all around him, like a dream. The film has its funny moments and also its unpleasant ones, one being where a man executes his little son for a minor offence, another being where the man assaults a blind man crossing the road. But the savage Buñuel humour is in evidence, where a man throws various objects out of a window, including a burning tree, a priest and a giraffe. The primary assault as usual is on the bourgeoisie, with a scene at a dinner party, where a maid is burning in the kitchen and a horse-driven cart steered by peasants trespasses through. Of course all the guests are oblivious to this. It all concludes with a controversial religious scene, which was the main reason it was banned for so long. It is still an accomplished, sophisticated, expressive and artistically unlimited piece.

A Clue: NEVER leave Dali and Bunuel in a room together!

[Spuzzlightyear · 7/10 · 21 September 2005]

I've seen L'Age D'or about 5 times now, and yes, it is STARTING to make some sense now, although what's so delicious about it is that most of it doesn't really make sense, and you're left trying to make sense out of most of it. From what I can make out, it's essentially The Fall of European Empire explained here. After the evil politicians arrive to take away the land of the settlers, everything evolves into of course, Modern Day Rome. From there, the fall of Man is sort of covered, where Mr X goes to a hideously formal party where he makes an ass out of himself, swats the party hostess for good measure, and makes out with a dame in the back of the property while everyone enjoys am orchestral maneuver. Having said that, and that was easy, still ½ of the film doesn't make sense to me. Why was Mr X so mean to animals? What was with the carrying of the dress? The beginning (scorpions!) the end? (orgy!) Crap, and I thought I had this all figured out

What the hell was that all about?

[JoeytheBrit · 5/10 · 19 August 2002]

Sometimes I'm not sure what I really think about a movie until I try to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Then, occasionally, the dam bursts, the fingers fly, and the vitriol or praise bursts forth. I knew about this movie, and Bunuel, before I watched it - any movie fan/buff worth his or her salt does, and so I approached it with an open mind, figuring that, at 40 years of age, I should at least be able to get the message, even if I didn't appreciate the way it was put across.

Well, I got the message but, dear God, did I really have to sit through such a relentless barrage of clever-clever surreal clap-trap in order to do so?

I'm not an intellectual man, and don't aspire to be one, so I don't feel particularly excluded by movies like this; each to their own, and all that. But, having said that, I can't help thinking exclusion is perhaps Bunuel's intention when he loads his film with such inaccessible and baffling images (and sequences) in order to deliver what is (apparently) quite a simple message. As far as I'm concerned, Bunuel was simply making movies for the small band of intellectual elitists of his own ilk, which makes him both a snob and the cinematic equivalent of the young child beseeching his friends to 'come and see what I've made!'. Either that, or he was so impressed with his own cleverness that his inflated self-regard blinded him to the fact that his choice of style immediately and irrevocably alienated the majority of his potential audience.

I can confidently say that this is one film I shall never watch again.

"In Christian tradition, the Golden Age is identified with Eden." (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

[Galina_movie_fan · 9/10 · 2 January 2007]

I am absolutely fascinated by "L'Âge d'or" ("Age of Gold"). As much as "Un chien andalou", Bunuel's first movie (1929) was equally Dali's and his, "L'Âge d'or" which is a sequel to "Un chien andalou" is more Bunuel's even with Dali credited for writing. All Bunuel's favorite themes and subjects have been stored in this relatively short (62 minutes) but still shocking and amazing film. And as all Bunuel's movies it is a great fun to watch. I think the closest to "L'Âge d'or" is his later masterpiece, "Le Fantôme de la liberté" (1974), another excellent collection of satirical vignettes, dark and comical.

The irony starts in the title of the movie - In the ancient mythology, the Golden Age emphasized the idea of original peacefulness, innocence and harmony in all of nature, including human society. In Christian tradition, the Golden Age is identified with Eden but in the Bunuel's paradise, there is no harmony or happiness and innocent are frustrated and rebellious by all kinds of obstacles, social and religious that prevent them from fulfilling their desire for each other ((favorite Bunuel's subject that he would explore over and over in his following films). There are many disturbing and shockingly violent images in the paradise created by Bunuel's fantasy; one is Lya Lys's face when she is sucking on the marble toe of the Greek goddess's statue desperately waiting for her beloved with whom she is never able to be together. It is agony and ecstasy which have not been matched on the screen since. The frustration and anger that always go together with Bunuel's unique humor culminate in the final attack on the organized religion of such vicious and darkly comical power, that the toothless and harmless "Da Vinci Code" could only dream about. The last episode contains the long quote from the infamous "120 Days of Sodom" by Marquise de Sade and the scandal as well as the dark humor is in the way some characters are presented in the scene. No surprise that the movie was banned for over fifty years. Made over 70 years ago, "L'Âge d'or" is still deliciously fresh, completely realized, outstanding work of one of the best and mysterious Masters of the Art of Cinema.

9.5/10

A scorpion's Ta(le)il.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 27 March 2012]

Since having heard his name mentioned for the first time in connection to Alfred Hitchcock and Dario Argento on the info packed commentary by Alan Jones and Kim Newman's for Argento's classic debut The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970-also reviewed),Luis Bunuel has been a director who I have become pretty keen on taking a look at.

Whilst almost getting myself caught up in an endless back and fourth struggle over trying to decide what Bunuel film I should go for,I thankfully got a bit of luck,when I recently found his very first film being sold at a fantastic price,which led me to deciding that my first Bunuel would also be the first ever (non short) film that he made.

View on the film:

As this very entertaining,interesting surrealist film opens with some re-used old documentary footage (featuring a new narration) about scorpion tail's, Luis Bunuel and co-writer Salvador Dali (who would have a huge falling out with Bunuel shortly before the beginning of the films production)set up the scorpion "sting" for each section of the movie.

With the beginning of the film having shown the ruthless behavior of animals,Bunuel cleverly uses the minimalist soundtrack to feature animal sounds that connect the characters to primal instincts which the church and other "higher up" sections of society are attempting to destroy,from the sound of birds being used when the couple start to kiss each others hands,to raw sewage (!) being inter-cut in the scene where the unnamed man is getting beaten up and punished like an animal.

Along with the soundtrack,Bunuel's directing also features a good number of stunning transitional/fading in/out shots that along with focusing on the beautiful features of lead actress Lya Lys, (whose performance gives the character a fantastic china doll-like fragility,shows that she is an actress who should have been bigger than she sadly became)also help to make the 63 minute running time fly by,thanks to each transition bringing a new piece of the scorpions tail to this sometimes messy,but always fascinating film.

An hour long Three Stooges short without any laughs

[rooprect · 1/10 · 25 July 2006]

A man kicks a dog 2' in the air.

A woman kicks a cow out of her bed.

A man kicks a violin down the sidewalk.

A woman sucks on a statue's toe for 15 seconds.

A man kicks a blind man in the stomach.

Jesus rapes a young girl.

There you have it. I just saved you an hour of your life. Surely there are those to whom this "shocking vanguard of cinematic expression" would appeal. But I found it no different from the puerile, disconnected videos I used to shoot with my friends in the 9th grade. Except we never had a real cow.

Having heard endless sermons from beard-stroking art connaisseurs of how this is such an important film, I thought it would be worth my time. Make no mistake, this is crap. If I hear one more person call Buñuel the "father of cinematic Surrealism", I think I'm going to punch someone. If anything, he issued a major step backward from the Surrealist beginnings pioneered by his seniors Fritz Lang (Metropolis), F.W. Murnau (Faust) and Robert Weine (Caligari) 10 years earlier. This made a joke out of the whole thing, as if Buñuel didn't have the confidence to truly embrace the art sans sarcasm, sans l'absurdité. It would take Buñuel another 40 years before he would refine his style into something admirable. Skip the early stuff and hop straight to 1970 if you want to be more impressed by his work.

I'm sure he would agree. In 1977, Buñuel himself stated that he would happily burn all the prints of his old movies. In this case I would be happy to pour the lighter fluid.

a masterpiece of nonsense

[dbdumonteil · 28 July 2002]

This film is often regarded as the best surrealistic film of all time. Like in his previous film "un chien andalou", Bunuel introduces us a film with a cock-and-bull screenplay. In this movie, he's using the power of his imagination and this is one of the surrealism's goals. The movie starts with a documentary on the scorpions, then some thieves are discovering four archbishops on the rocks, next, come the founders of Rome. Later, in Rome, a young woman is finding a cow on her bed; during a reception, in a beautiful castle, a tipcart full of workers is crossing the living-room and other weird events like these ones happen later..... It's easy to find out why this movie was forbidden for a long time in France (it was finally re-released in 1981). If you think that some elements of the story (if there is one!) like the four archbishops or the tipcart are funny, well they aren't. It's only his second film and Bunuel's showing us his obsessions: he's laughing at religion and upper middle class by ridiculing them and he is against the conformity. That's why his movie's got nonsense and even the title: why the Golden Age? However, behind all this nonsense, there is a love story between Gaston Modot and Lya Lys which is more sketched out than told.

Moreover, the film also created a huge scandal due to the last sequence. It was inspired by the most horrible French novel: "les 120 journées de Sodome" by the Marquis de Sade (Bunuel used to admire him). This French writer's novels were forbidden for a long time due to their violence and their philosophy. In the movie, the scene created a double scandal because the count of Blangis's got the Christ' head! This film is incredible and fascinating due to the screenplay and its unexpected events. If you want to discover Bunuel's films, this one is a good start

Probably the most important film ever made.

[NateManD · 10/10 · 29 June 2005]

After the 1929, surreal short film "Un Chien Andalou"; Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali collaborated once again. This time in 1930 for " L Age D Or" (the Age of Gold) A scathing satire attacking the bourgeois state, religion, and the wealthy elite. The film concerns a man's quest for a women's unattainable love; a common theme with Bunuel. The couple is caught making love and separated by authorities. Throughout, the film the man tries to pursue the woman with no luck. He's repeatedly interrupted by different institutions. Finally, the couple is reunited at a snotty high class party. Things go down hill from there as the film get's more and more crazy. " L Age D Or" contains many bizarre surreal images such as crippled soldiers who use guns for crutches, priest's that turn into skeletons, a cow in the leading lady's bedroom, toe fetishes and a giraffe and priest getting thrown out a window and harpooned. The dark humor was way ahead of it's time. Watch as a father shoots his own kid for not obeying him. In fact it's easy to see why, it's festival premiere caused a riot. It was also extremely controversial for it's blasphemous images. Of course, today it's less shocking and more hilarious. Bunuel and Dali were anarchic in their vision of society. Attacking every form of hypocrisy through surrealism, they inspired many directors. This film is a must for anyone who's interested in surrealism or the history of cinema. Also check out "The Phantom of Liberty" for more crazy Bunuel madness.

L'Age d'Or

[jboothmillard · 6/10 · 13 January 2013]

I recognised the name of the director Luis Buñuel for his highly surreal nightmarish and memorable short film Un Chien Andalou which I saw in Film Studies, that and this film were listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, so I was looking forward to see this his first feature film. Basically this French film is all about a loving couple, the Man (Gaston Modot) and the Young Girl (Lya Lys) and their many attempts to embrace and consummate their feelings, but all are interrupted and thwarted by various events and occurrences. These distractions often occur because of the families, the church and generally bourgeois society, and they find it very difficult to get away from these things and final sexual release and satisfaction, there is even a scene where all the Girl can do is suck the toe of a statue. Also starring Caridad De Laberdesque as a Chambermaid and Little Girl, Max Ernst as the Leader of men in cottage, Josep Llorens Artigas as Governor, Lionel Salem as Duke of Blangis, Germaine Noizet as Marquise and Duchange as Conductor. Alright, I will be completely honest and say that I didn't really understand anything going on, and I did get a dozy because of this, but I suppose I can see reasons why this film was banned for forty-nine years from what I can recall, and there are some humorous and erotic scenes, so it is I suppose not a bad satire. Good, as far as I remember!

The Genesis of a Visionary's Work

[nycritic · 10/10 · 30 June 2006]

And of course, the one where it all began: L'AGE D'OR is the sacred beast that people stay away from not just because of its reputation but because it's maddening and at times incomprehensible, but then again, Surrealism as an art form is meant to be just that -- shocking, disturbing, and with only the vaguest sense of meaning. Beginning with a documentary on the nature of scorpions, it segues into the image of cardinals on a beach, chanting, and Max Ernst posing as a haggard soldier who spots them and heads back to his hideout where he informs other equally haggard men that "the Mallorcans are coming." They prepare to "fight" but in fact, never do and drop dead from exhaustion. From here on, the loosely connected "story" about a man and a woman who are caught making love on the beach, separated, and the way they try to get back together. As the man -- revealed later to be a high diplomatic official -- goes into reveries where he sees his loved one in advertisements (including one where her hand furiously rubs itself on a surface in a sexual way), so does the woman. When they finally reconnect at a dinner party held at her house, a fire breaks loose and kills a maid to no one's surprise, a guest's face is crawling with insects, and a man kills his young son after apparently touching him inappropriately. Pandemonium breaks loose, and the final sequence, in pure Bunuelian fashion, is about the four aristocrats who in Sade's "120 Days of Sodom" engaged in extreme orgies of destruction. One of these men, the first, emerges like Christ and does look powerfully erotic even when there is nothing erotic about him, and we're back in the beginning, with the symbol of scorpions rising from the dead.

L'AGE D'OR is a patchwork of fundamental dreams that repeat themselves even when the main players -- the man and the woman -- aren't aware of it. Eternally longing for each other, they can never seem to act out their physical need for each other, and even when it looks like they won't be interrupted, it's Bunuel's own nascent mischief that continually plays tricks on them. He remains entrenched in his own bizarre intimacy, and as they talk about the destruction of the children -- an event that is later alluded to with a phone call in which another official yells at the man for allowing society to run riot and devour itself -- the man's face emerges looking horrendously bloody, a hideous mask. It's this interruption that has the girl resorting to committing an act of fellatio on a statue, an image that even now can cause a little bit of surprise here and there, not because of what she is doing, but because of its very audacity. That these two people become forgotten as the movie walks towards its bizarre climax lays testament to its surrealist roots and only increases its importance in the evolution of film and visual media. When seeing how nightmarish dream sequences became constructed in later years, first in science fiction (INVADERS FROM MARS), horror (ROSEMARY'S BABY, REPULSION), and even suspense films (SPELLBOUND, VERTIGO), and then in all genres (ANNIE HALL, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, THE MATRIX, all David Lynch movies, etc. to name a scattered few), print and video, it's not hard to find the long arm of Surrealism and Bunuel in them. L'AGE D'OR is not a perfect movie -- the end sequence is a little too long even for a 60 minute nightmare -- but its power can't be denied, over 75 years later. All of the elements of Bunuel's own themes are here: the dinner party where all but dinner takes place, the shooting of an innocent, acts of terrorism, interrupted intimacy, and normalcy gone haywire. Of course, in Bunuel's own world, all this was just another day, but then again, it takes someone of the caliber of Bunuel to make this topsy-turvy world a mirror-image of ours.

Less successful than "Un Chien Andalou", but still impressive

[gridoon2024 · 7/10 · 25 March 2019]

The reason "Un Chien Andalou" works better is that it is shorter, and has a quicker succession of images; "L'Age D'Or" is more plodding, and has too much dead space between its memorable images. When these images do appear, however, they can be funny (randomly kicking a blind man), disturbing (shooting a little kid), bizarre (a man commits suicide and his body falls on the ceiling), provocative (tossing the clergyman out the window), erotic (a woman passionately sucking on the toes of a statue) -> sometimes all at once! You cannot deny the impact of these two films, even if it took another 40 years for Monty Python and others to really popularize surrealism on the screen. *** out of 4.

people take it too seriously and Bunuel wouldn't want that!

[oslane · 9/10 · 25 May 2008]

If you're knowledgeable about Bunuel's body of work, then you'll see pretty much the blue print for his future films, with all of his views on religion, unrequited lust and love/hate for the bourgeoisie. I agree with those who loved it yet, at the same time, I feel people missed Bunuel's point. Bunuel wanted a complete affront to the senses of that audience. If that sounds childish, well... Anyone could argue the easiness of taking shocking images and filming them and then claiming to be a genius is really dumb. But there is a sense of flow and rhythm to the images; this is not just a disparate collection of things to look at.

Yet still one does not have to scratch his/her head in bewilderment as to what it all means. Does anyone complain about a Dali painting and his skewing of reality? Maybe, I don't know. But it's the same thing here. There are lots of grotesque, funny and sublime sequences. And though it doesn't necessarily flow as a cohesive narrative which has a straightforward, underlying message, it's clear which social mores that Bunuel/Dali are criticizing. If you're versed in Bunuel, he'd be the first to tell you that his images are not supposed to be symbolic. If you see a peasant on a horse and carriage riding through a Marquis De Sade castle, then that's exactly what you're seeing.

As such there is an image of man executing his son, an image of another man brutally kicking a blind man, a cross with human scalps, a toilet making sewer noises cut between images of a man rolling in mud, which looks a little too much like...

A Surrealistic Classic From Bunuel

[springfieldrental · 7/10 · 2 September 2022]

Fresh off their short surrealist 1929 film, " Un Chien Andalou," the creative team of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali collaborated on a script for November 1930's "L'Age d'Or." Wealthy Frenchman Vicomte Charles de Noailles, owner of a Paris movie theater who had funded experimentalist films of Man Ray and Jean Cocteau for the past two years, gave the two artists one million francs to produce their surrealistic film as a present to his wife. The close working colleagues were hammering out the final pages of their script when the married Bunuel met Dali's future wife, Gala (Elena Ivanovna Diakonova) in Cadaques, Spain. Dali became jealous of Bunuel and the attention he gave to his girlfriend, causing a strain in their relationship. Also, the direction their movie was taking also differed from each other's objective. Dali noted, "Our ideas clashed to such an extent that we finally stopped collaborating on 'L'Age d'Or.'"

Bunuel outlined the film as a statement against Europe's bourgeois and its institutions. Dali was more anti-Catholic and Freudian in his outlook and differed on the script's focus. After the split, Bunuel retained some of Dali's viewpoints while he emphasized more of a political angst. The complex images that ultimately gave the message of anti-everything caused such a ruckus during one early screening of "L'Age d'Or" that groups of racist and religious groups hurled open bottles of ink at the screen. They then turned their attention to a nearby art gallery, destroying every surrealist painting they could get their hands on. The Vatican was equally upset with the feature film, threatening excommunication of the movie's financing couple, the de Noailles. Because of such a negative brouhaha, they withdrew the movie from distribution for 50 years until November 1979, where it reemerged in a San Francisco movie theater.

Surrealistic art gives viewers the freedom to interpret the works based on their personal background and insights. Each reviewer of "L'Age d'Or" has written varying viewpoints about the messages contained in the film. The famous beginning capturing a hunt by backwoods countrymen for scorpions in the mountains was gleaned from a 1912 documentary on the poisonous critters. Some see the scorpions' stings paralleling to country leaders or the ruling classes who kill their citizens by creating wars. Following these stinging scenes is a shot of apathetic party goers who ignore a peasant ox-driven cart riding through the host's mansion. They shrug their shoulders as they witness a father shooting his son over a silly prank the kid did to him. Another well-known sequence shows a couple kissing on the grounds as an orchestra plays Mozart (the first time in film a Mozart piece is heard) while party-goers are seated witnessing both the musicians and the lovers, one kissing the toes of a statue, at the same time. It's a scene deserving of armchair psychologists' interpretations.

"L'Age d'Or" differs from Bunuel/Dali's earlier work. The short "Um Chien Andalou" consisted mainly of a series of random surrealistic images. The latest feature film appears similar to a traditional Hollywood movie. But unlike a typical motion picture, Bunuel constantly veered off in "L'Age d'Or" into new directions, confounding the senses of the normal viewer. The craftsmanship of the movie, budgeted within the vicomte's massive budget that used volunteer actors, impressed MGM executives when they viewed a rare print of it. The studio offered Bunuel and its leading actress, Lya Lys, a contract. Things turned south, however, when Bunuel was kicked off the sound stage of a Greta Garbo production on her insistence of privacy. His pride being hurt, Bunuel simply hung around Los Angeles and showed up only to collect his paycheck. After a few months, the studio wised up and terminated his contract. He returned to Europe to work independently in film. He was also able to engage several Hollywood-owned European studios to support his filmmaking.

His lasting influence in surrealism in film is incalculable, so much so the editors of "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" have included "L'Age d'Or" in their reference book.

Someone Is Bound to Like This

[almagz · 1/10 · 28 May 2006]

When something can be anything you want it to be or mean, it's bound to register with someone as being rather special. But just as the shape of a cloud in the sky may appear to one of us or remind us of a battleship, and to another of his aunt's rear, and yet to another absolutely nothing other than a cloud, this does not make this cloud meaningful except for the viewers' interpretation. Anyone who might find throwing a stuffed giraffe out of a window brilliant, or worthwhile for that matter, without relating it in some context, is possibly merely trying to impress us with his or her intellectuality.

Submitting to this movie as the dreams of a madman does quite nicely, especially since there is no standard or expectation for what said dreams would be like, and even if we were mad ourselves, this would hardly give us sane reference points for comparison. A love affair with this movie entails the same risk as seriously interpreting Nostradamus. Whatever real meaning was being conveyed at the time might be buried in the private jokes, musings, or provincial minutiae of its day, and to a select few radical intellectuals at that! I did spot a bit of an agenda even with my limited capacity though.

The movie is definitely anti-Fascist and to some extent anti-Italian. I noted that although the years 1929-30 were years of great public works and urban renewal in Italy, any indication of this seemed avoided. Furthermore, (avant-guarde academic spinners take note of this for your next class) the very short cropped haired man with the mustache in the party segment near the end is a caricature of Victor Emmanuel III and his tall female companion none other than Queen Helen, formerly Princess of Montenegro. Without an understanding of potential historical relevance, even the apparent irrelevance is beyond the competence of academic or other intellectual poseurs who would bask in irrelevance to impress us.

I gladly add my own paint buckets to the defacement of this cinematic joke. But in an adaptation of the famous mot by the little boy; The movie really has no face (to deface). Paint would help it burn though.

Pure CinemaThe Best Marx Bothers Picture the Marx Brothers Never Would've Made.

[jzappa · 8/10 · 5 August 2008]

L'Age D'Or is pure cinema, as silent films were, and despite how difficult it may be to feel absorbed in it, it really is a great work. It consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most prolonged of which tells the goofy satirical story of a man and a woman who are keenly in love. Their efforts to have sex are always obstructed by their families, by the Church and the bourgeoisie. In one attention-grabbing moment in the film, the woman passionately sucks on the toe of a religious statue as if it were a phallus, the iconoclasm of which is remarkable considering the time at which this movie was made, and consequently banned.

Salvador Dali, the hugely amusing surrealist painter, co-directed this film with Luis Bunuel, and the tone of many of his paintings is captured in many moments of the film but in the appropriate manner for its medium, such as the scalps of the women flapping in the wind on a crucifix accompanied by cheerful music, or the twisted black humor of the final vignette, which uses comic-strip-like symbolism and details to tell of a Marquis de Sade-style orgy, the survivors (!) of which emerge, one of them reminiscent of the most conventional image of Jesus.

Upon viewing, I was muddled by all of this. I laughed a bit, my eyebrows curled, and I didn't quite understand, perhaps because I'm not accustomed to the proper manner in which one views a a silent film from 1929, but I did reflect upon it and it grew on me, because I do believe that if this film were not banned by the ever-predictable church and the governments they still influence, it would have moved the viewers of its era to open its eyes a bit more to sexual repression, whether propagated by civil bourgeois society or by the church, and ponder the film's most plausible implication, which is that repression generates violence, which is very true. The fiendish gag is in the look of dog-tired depravity as Christ emerges like a De Mille figure staggering of De Sade's party.

A surreal metaphor about society of the time

[Elvis-Del-Valle · 7/10 · 9 April 2023]

A fairly short story, but with crazy images that make it bizarre and even confusing or incomprehensible, since it has many symbols and scenes that seem to have been made with the aim of shocking the viewer. Buñuel and Dali teamed up again to bring this film that, from a surreal and metaphorical perspective, makes an allegory of the society of the time. All narrated through 2 lovers willing to sacrifice a lot to be together. I must say that I thought it was a rather strange and bizarre film, but it is for this reason and for its supposed rebellion and symbolism that today it is considered a jewel of the seventh art. My rating for this tape is 7/10.

Show this to your friends to screw with their minds!!!

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 13 July 2007]

If you'd like a great April Fool's joke, then please by all means show this film to someone. However, it is important that you in no way criticize the film but instead talk about what an artistic triumph it is and how "they just don't make great films like this any more". As your victim watches many disconnected and nonsensical scenes (such as a cute dog getting punted for no apparent reason, a cow standing on the bed, a woman licking a statue's feet or Jesus apparently raping a woman), make lots of comments using words like "brilliance", "juxtaposed" or "transcendent"--all the while acting as if the film actually makes perfect sense and isn't a complete waste of an hour of your life. Also be sure to keep a straight face and feign shock when (and if) they say that they either didn't understand it or thought it had all the artistry of a cow patty. Then, to further mess with them, show them all the comments on IMDb, as nearly all (except for a few trouble-makers like almagz and rooprect) talk glowingly about what genius and artistry this film is! By the time you are done with this little charade, they'll most likely think they are idiots and will make an appointment with a psychologist.

This, to me, is the ONLY possible reason to watch this horrid mess of a film!!! That, or you could show it to the prisoners at Guantanamo in order to get them to talk!

If you ask me, the famous painting of dogs playing poker or a velvet Elvis painting are superior artistically.