Apropos for a campus in dire need of leftist political art, the Harvard Film Archive will screen L’Age d’Or (The Golden Age), Luis Buñuel’s classic work of surrealism, subversion and sarcasm, this Sunday at 7 p.m.

An hour-long journey into the abstract workings of Buñuel and co-writer Salvador Dali’s seemingly bottomless imaginations, L’Age d’Or is a collection of unnerving vignettes, treating the viewer to such visual non sequiturs as men climbing on ceilings, a woman caressing and kissing a statue, and a man with a face of flies. It is challenging viewing, but the rewards are immense.

The film is the companion piece to Buñuel’s somewhat better-known short Un Chien Andalou, notorious for its striking image of a woman having her eye cut open with a knife. The first film acted as a sketch of its director’s major themes; L’Age d’Or is the full portrait.

The film is enjoyable alone for its astounding visuals (stunning for 1930) and rampant slapstick. Like Jean Renoir’s La Regle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game), also recently screened at the Archive, L’Age d’Or works on two levels: it’s a knee-slapping farce, at the same time deeply wrapped up in a scathing social commentary aimed squarely at the upper class. The targets of the latter film’s satire are Buñuel’s usual suspects: the Church, bourgeois society and other institutions of alleged social oppression.

The leftist overtones are strongly pronounced, and L’Age d’Or has come under fire ever since its release from right-wing groups. Pay no heed to the fascists—Buñuel creates a work of beauty and comedy, fascinating the viewer while keeping him in stitches. A social activist as much as a filmmaker, Buñuel understood that art and laughter are the strongest tactics at one’s disposal when faced with the forces of oppression. L’Age d’Or teaches us the key to remaining sane in a world gone haywire: If you can’t fight the ruling powers, just ridicule ’em.

Democrats: Take note.

—Michael M. Grynbaum