PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

tomgillespie2002 In 1929, the art world and movie-going audiences were shocked to the core when Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali teamed-up to make the short surrealistic masterpiece Un Chien Andalou. Scenes of eye-slitting and ants crawling out of open palms caused revulsion and awe in equal measures. A year later, Bunuel and Dali planned another surreal satire, but the two had a fall-out, leading to Bunuel taking the solo reigns and using his film-making know-how to make a slightly more accessible and narrative-driven piece, and this time feature-length (well, 63 minutes). The result caused chaotic scenes of rioting, violence and destruction upon its premiere. Bunuel must have been laughing his ass off.The film is basically a collection of small vignettes that revolve around a couple, the Man (Gaston Madot) and the Young Girl (Lya Lys) who are passionately in love. Yet their frequent attempts at expressing their love are repeatedly thwarted by various groups and people. There is also a short documentary about scorpions, a bourgeois party where a small boy is shot with a shotgun and a serving woman gets blown out of the kitchen by a fire, and an epilogue detailing an 120-day orgy (a reference to the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom) which leads to the death and scalping of the participating women.I have to admit that whilst viewing this mind-f*****g masterpiece, I was dumbfounded as to what was going on or what the film was trying to get across. Yet like all great art, it stayed with me, and the more I thought about it, the clearer it became. The message seems to be how society and religion can suppress natural sexual urges and expression to the point that it can cause violence within humanity. The film is full of sexual imagery - most memorably in the scene where the Young Girl, seemingly nymphomaniacal in her lust for the Man, performs fellatio on the toe of a statue. The camera then amusingly cuts to the statues face, as if we are expecting a reaction from it.It is relentless in its mockery of religion and the upper classes. In the most shocking scene (even by today's standards), we are shown an idealistic portrayal of a father-and-son. The father sits holding an object (I think he is rolling a cigarette) in the scenic garden of their home, while their son playfully hops about him. His son then knocks the object out of his hand and runs off, causing the father to fume. The father then picks up his shotgun and shoots the boy dead. And then shoots his limp body again. The son seems to represent free-spirit and the father society, and it seems the message here is that if you refuse to conform to society's wishes, then society will crush you. A relatively simple point sledge-hammered home. It wouldn't be too far- fetched to call this one of the most important films ever made, as it pushed the boundaries of what was possible at the time and remains just as shocking and as ground-breaking as it was 82 years ago.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Eumenides_0 Luis Buñuel's companion piece to Un Chien Andalou had much the same effect its predecessor had on me: it bored me, it baffled me, it frustrated me, it disappointed me. It's another collection of insignificant, random episodes illuminated by rare flashes of genius. It eschews any narrative or meaning, which at least gives weight to its claim as one of the few actual surrealist movies ever made.But I've seen Buñuel's work from several periods in his life, and I admit I much prefer he works with a narrative, like in Belle de Jour or The Exterminating Angel. When anything goes in a narrative, when nothing has a purpose or limits, nothing is incredible about it, not cows in beds, or a woman sucking a statue's toes, or other bizarre imagery available in The Golden Age. On the other hand, in a reality-based movie the intrusion of the fantastic, the strange and the grotesque is much more noticeable and fascinating, and that's why I much prefer Buñuel has a story to work with.The Golden Age is a relic, a piece of film history, but I wouldn't call it a great movie. In terms of strangeness, I think Buñuel was surpassed by his contemporary Jean Cocteau, for instance. And in terms of shock, he has zero effect nowadays. That's the problem with shock: since it relies on transgressing boundaries and since boundaries are always changing in society, any work built on shock will quickly find itself dated. This movie doesn't hold up as well as later Buñuel movies.Let's give Luis Buñuel his due for having opened the doors for a new way of film-making, but let's not ignore the faults in this movie.

christopher-underwood So easy to watch but rather more difficult to write about. I first saw this with 'Un Chien Andalou' in the 60s and was an overnight Bunuel fan, gradually getting to see most of his subsequent films. The exception was some of the earliest Mexican ones, which just recently I have seen, thanks to DVD releases. Once a director only seen in film societies and art galleries, now available to all. Of course there were later films that got reasonable releases but rarely to your local Odeon. I have never understood why. I admit that watching this film nearly 80 years after it was made a few allowances have to be made, but it is still shocking, it is still disturbing and it is still funny and at the same time uplifting. It is something that seems to run through all of Bunuel's work, this sunny disposition. At one with the earth. This is despite his fury bordering on hatred of authority and the church in particular and this certainly shows here, whether it's shooting a child, pushing over a blind man, tipping a cardinal out of a window. Just to add to this potent mix there is of course the sexual angle and this film contains one of the most erotic sequences in all of cinema, complete with Wagner's, Tristan und Isolde soaring on the soundtrack. I've just realised I haven't even mentioned the surrealism!

Boba_Fett1138 Well, first of all I really liked the earlier surrealistic movie "Un chien andalou" by Luis Buñuel but I guess this movie just sort of went too far for me.Story-wise, this is just an extreme odd piece to watch. Halve of the time you really don't understand what is going on and what some of the intentions are. But I guess that's also part of the charm of this movie and a reason why you can watch it over and over again, exploring and understanding more of its themes and surrealistic elements every time you watch it.It's a movie that is also obviously criticizing some themes such as against the bourgeois and religion as well as some social critiques. On that level I liked this movie, since it was also effective with it as well.Perhaps you also shouldn't view this film as an actual film but more as a piece of art, you can watch from different perspective and unleash your own interpretations on it.As a movie this one is just too lacking, since its an at times almost impossible movie to watch and follow. The dialog and some of the sequences just seem to pop out of nowhere, without making an obvious connection to the movie as a whole. And as strange as it might sound after criticizing its story, this movie just has too much of a story. "Un chien andalou" was a great dream-like surreal movie, without a story in it. This movie follows a main plot-line with characters in it and does feature dialog. Perhaps I would had liked this film more if it was made as an entirely silent movie instead. It would had most likely strengthened its surrealistic elements. The movie is now instead not surrealistic enough for my liking.Probably one of the most bizarre movies you'll ever see, without understanding it.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/