Un Chien Andalou / L'Age D'or DVD BFI box set (rrp £29)

Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or, two landmark films in the history of cinema, are presented together in this special DVD box-set, complete with a 30-page booklet. This is the first time that L'Age d'Or has ever been released on DVD, anywhere in the world. Luis Bunuel's legendary first film, Un Chien Andalou written with Salvador Dali, created a scandal at its premiere and its startling eye-slicing opening sequence has continued to shock viewers ever since. Despite Bunuel and Dali's energetic rejections of any rational meaning in the film, Un Chien Andalou is an exploration of desire and the obstacles in the path of instinctual passion, equally indebted to Surrealism and Freud. L'Age d'Or is indisputably one of the great collaborations of cinema history, uniting the genius of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali in the making of a Surrealist masterpiece - a uniquely savage blend of visual poetry and social criticism. A sinister and strangely poignant chronicle of a couple's struggles to consummate their frenzied desire in the face of a stream of obstacles from bourgeois society and the Church, the film was banned and vilified for many years, becoming justly legendary for its subversive eroticism and its furious dissection of 'civilised' values. The accompanying 30-page booklet includes notes on both films by Robert Short, author of The Age of Gold: Surrealist Cinema (Creation Books, 2003), biographies, selected bibliography, notes on the making of Un Chien Andalou by Luis Bunuel and Manifesto of the Surrealists concerning L'Age d'Or by The Surrealist Group. Extras * Filmed introduction by art historian and author Robert Short * Commentary for each film by Robert Short * A Proposito de Bunuel (2000, 98 mins) - a documentary on Bunuel