The film perhaps most identified with the Surrealist movement, L'Age d'or was described on its release as a "desperate pursuit of a wonderful love across the ferocious and cunning snares of social life" (Jean-Paul Dreyfus). Luis Bu-uel himself reflected, "L'Age d'or is the only film in my career conceived and created in a state of euphoria and enthusiasm, of vertigo for overthrowing things and deliberate seeking of scandal, dedicated to attacking the representatives of 'order' and ridiculing their 'eternal' principles. The period called for such a spirit..."