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L'Age D'Or (1930, Fr.) (aka
The Age of Gold, or The Golden Age)
In Buñuel's follow-up surrealistic feature film
to the previous year's short Un Chien Andalou (1929) - a disjointed
historically-significant film (co-scripted by Salvador Dali) ---
it was denounced by the Roman Catholic Church (for a blasphemous
castle orgy scene involving a Jesus Christ look-alike rapist in the
film's ending). It was also censored or banned by a few governments,
impounded in some cases, sparked riots in theaters, and was considered
controversial (pornographic and offensive):
- the plot: two passionate yet frustrated lovers,
a Man (Gaston Modot) and Young Girl (Lya Lys), were being kept
from one another and repressed by the pious bourgeois establishment
for fear of them having sex together
- the opening documentary sequence on scorpions
- the indelible images of lovers in mud attempting to
make love to each other, and the sight of the sexually-frustrated
young woman performing fellatio on the toes of a religious marble
statue in a garden
- other surrealistic images: mitred skeletal arch-bishops
perched on coastal rocks, a milking cow then standing in a young
woman's bed, a cart driven by a horse through an elegant drawing
room, and some acts of violence (a dog kicked, a beetle stomped and
squished on rocks, a blind man pushed down with a foot to his stomach,
a foot crushing a violin on pavement, a punch in the face), and most
surprisingly, a burning tree, a bishop, a huge wooden plow, the bishop's
staff, a giraffe statue, and pillow feathers thrown out a window
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Skeletal Arch-Bishops on Coastal Rocks
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Milking Cow on Bed
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- the heretical ending, in which bearded and robed
Duke of Blangis (Lionel Salem), a Jesus look-alike, raped a young
woman in a castle, then emerged near a crucifix adorned with five
female scalps blowing in the wind
Duke of Blangis and Crucifix with Female Scalps
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Scorpion Documentary
Lovers in Mud
Sucking Statue's Toes
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