THE AGE OF GOLD (1930)

A.K.A.: L’Age d’Or

Country: France

Genre(s): Art Film

Director: Luis Bunuel

Cast: Gaston Modot / Lya Lys / Max Ernst

Plot

The expectations and interferences of society thwart a man and woman’s carnal desires for one another.

What I Liked

Fresh off of his collaboration with surrealist artist Salvador Dali, “An Andalusian Dog,” director Luis Bunuel continues in a similar vein with “The Age of Gold.”  Again the psychology of sexuality is the main theme and is illustrated through the juxtaposition of unrelated (at least on the surface) images.  This time, though, the movie has a more discernible plot and less of the nightmarish free associations of its predecessor.   The movie is a fine example of the possibilities motion pictures still represented to creative people here, at the dawn of the sound era.  Movie making, though on the fast track to studio-imposed conformity, was still an open form for some innovators, who often acted as scientists, tinkering with the limits of what could be said with such a populist medium.

What I Didn’t Like

Bunuel’s use of the movies to explore the taboos of psychology was indeed groundbreaking and certainly opened up the possibilities for many a respected filmmaker to come.  At this point though, those filmmakers have long since took what Bunuel did and greatly improved upon it.  And there was plenty of room to improve.  “Age of Gold” holds little intellectual or emotional sway over a modern viewer.  The truths it depicts may be timeless, but the method with which it delivers those truths are badly dated.

Most Memorable Scene

In the film’s most famous (and titillating) image, a woman whose foreplay with a male lover has just been interrupted by his being called away to the telephone, makes due by wrapping her lips around the toe of a nearby statue and sucking.  You don’t have to be Freud to suppose what that toe might have been taking the place of in her mind and that’s the point.  Even then, certain images uniquely pluck the same Jungian nerve in all of us, and the movies, Bunuel realized, could arouse the collective unconscious like no other media before.

My Rating: 2 out of 5