The plot of L'age d'Or is remarkably simple: two lovers (Gaston Modot and Lya Lys) declare war on a bourgeois French society intent on thwarting the fulfillment of their desires. Although the actions of the frustrated lovers are central, the film goes off in all sorts of directions. Indeed, it opens with documentary footage of scorpions. (In a sense, the film itself may be seen as a scorpion, for its sting, like the razor at the beginning of Un Chien Andalou, threatens our complacent acceptance of the world we live in.) This leads into incidents on a rocky seashore, where a gang of bandits (led by Surrealist painter Max Ernst) are invaded first by a group of chanting bishops and then dignitaries who "have come to found the Roman empire." The film ends with a sequence of a cross bedecked with scalps, covered with snow, blowing in the wind, to the tune of a paso doble. However, a desciption of the bare bones of the plot will give but little idea of the visual poetry of this landmark of world cinema, since, as put by Henry Miller, a huge admirer of Buñuel and the film, "L'Age d'Or is composed of a succession of images without sequence, the significance of which must be sought below thethreshold of consciousness." Here is the complete text of Buñuel's own synopsis of the film, written in French, in 1930: "Scorpions live in the rocks. Having climbed atop one of these rocks, a bandit sights a group of archbishops, who sing while seated in the mineral landscape. The bandit hurries to announce to his friends the presence of the archbishops. When he gets to his hut, he finds his companions in a strange state of weakness and depression. They take up their weapons and leave, with the exception of the youngest, who cannot even get up. They set out among the rocks, but one after the other they fall to the ground, unable to go on. Then the leader of the bandits collapses without hope. From where he lies, he hears the sea and sees the archbishops, who are now reduced to skeletons scattered among the stones.
