10 Weird Movies That Purposely Tried To Confuse You

8. L'‚ge D'Or (Luis Buñuel/Salador Dalí)

Mention the pairing of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí to most fans of cinema and the film that is immediately mentioned is Un Chien Andalou, regarded by many as the most important surrealist film of all time. The duo's first picture is undoubtedly a confusing and beautiful masterpiece, but it was its follow-up companion piece L'‚ge D'Or that truly dismantled conventional narrative logic in favour of a dream-inspired structure of non-sequiturs and wilfully bizarre images. Written by both artists but directed wholly by Buñuel, L'‚ge D'Or is effectively comprised a series of symbolically-related images that, rather than relying on a story to connect them, are linked by comparable motifs and allusions. Most of these are sexual in nature, which is unsurprising given the Freudian influence on surrealism, and are chosen largely to infuriate the conservatism of the Roman Catholic Church. Its provocative imagery worked, with the film being withdrawn from distribution for years after rioting ensued at its premiere. Criticisms were thrown at the fact that the film was nothing more than a string of unrelated lewd and base images, with its lack of narrative proving (according to church-goers) that Buñuel was creating nothing better than pornographic blasphemy. It's interesting, then, that Buñuel had no comprehension of editing at the time and actually shot the film sequentially and in real-time (effectively, only 63 minutes of material was filmed for the 63 minute film). Of course, with hindsight, Buñuel and Dalí's films have become incredibly influential and their reliance on imagery over storytelling effectively informed the whole future of avant-garde cinema. If it wasn't for Un Chien Andalou and L'‚ge D'Or, narrative experimentation would not exist in the same way as it does throughout the other works on this list.