3. L'Age d'or (1930)
One of the first sound movies made in France, L'age d'or is a surreal black comedy directed by Luis Buñuel who is assisted in script duties by Salvador Dali. The film makes fun of middle class mores and manners as well as the hypocrisy of the Catholic church. A young man and woman are desperate to consummate their relationship but bourgeois society and the church keep getting in their way. The woman is so sexually frustrated, she performs fellatio on the toe of a religious statue. The final vignette is a direct homage to The Marquis de Sade called 120 Days of Depraved Acts. There is an orgy in a castle and when it is finished, the survivors emerge including a bearded and robed Duc de Blangis who looks scarily like Jesus. A young woman runs out of the castle and the Jesus look a like takes her back into the castle. We hear a woman scream. The man emerges by himself - he has lost his beard. The final image is of a crucifix covered in women's scalps blowing gently in the breeze while jaunty music plays. It shocked French middle class society when it was released, but that was the point of the film. Right wing French groups went bananas - starting riots, destroying paintings and generally being hostile prudes. The censors had to pull the film as it was causing so much havoc. It was not shown for 49 years and the whole of Spain collectively disowned Buñuel. For a film in 1930, it had a lot of guts to slate society and the Catholic church. It is still a shocking and unnerving film all these years later. The Duc de Blangis appearing as Jesus is an act of audacious blasphemy and also intensely creepy.