Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageL'Age d'Or (1930)
Director: Luis Buñuel
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
'Our sexual desire has to be seen as the product of centuries of repressive and emasculating Catholicism... it is always coloured by the sweet secret sense of sin,' mused Buñuel in his autobiography My Last Breath. One might describe L'Age d'Or as 63 minutes of coitus interruptus, a scabrous essay on Eros and civilisation, wherein a couple is constantly prised apart from furious love-making by the police, high society and, above all, the Church. Financed by the Vicomte de Noailles, a dream patron who loyally pronounced the film exquisite and delicious, even as right-wing extremists were pelting it with ink and stink bombs, this is a jagged memento of that Golden Age before directors forgot the art of filming erotica (the celebrated toe-sucking is sexier by far than almost anything since), the revolutionary avant-garde lost its sense of humour, and surrealism itself fell prey to advertising-agency chic.Author: SJo
Cast & crew
Director: Luis Buñuel
Producer: Vicomte de Noailles
Cast: Gaston Modot, Lya Lys, Max Ernst, Pierre Prévert, Jacques Brunius, Luis Buñuel full cast
Duration: 63 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 50 greatest monster movies
As Joe Johnston’s long-awaited reinvention of Universal’s howl-at-the-moon classic ‘The Wolfman’ hits cinemas, Time Out lists our 50 favourite cinematic stalkers, growlers, slashers and biters.
Mark Kermode: A life in film
Dave Calhoun chats to Britain's most outspoken film critic and pundit ahead of the release of his memoirs
Has Ricky Gervais gone all serious?
The trailer to 'Cemetery Junction' suggests that its writer-director is suppressing his funny bone.
The genius of Roman Polanski
Ahead of his new film, 'The Ghost', we must forget the media circus and remember the artist pleads Wally Hammond
Oscars 2010: The nominees
Tom Huddleston offers his acute analysis on the list of nominees for the 2010 Academy Awards
Rotterdam 2010: Geoff Andrew's report
Geoff Andrew finds rich leftfield pickings at the 2010 Rotterdam Film Festival
Can Tom Ford cut it as a director?
After ten years as creative head of Gucci, Tom Ford has directed his first movie. Nina Caplan meets him
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
So here it is… Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this.
2009: The year in film
We look back at the best movies of 2009 and pick out some of our favourite lists, features and interviews.
What do you think?
Post your review now