The opening scene, with the eyeball sliced by the razor, is one of the most famous in cinema. What is accomplished by this scene? What is its effect upon the viewer? Is it just there for purposes of shock, or does it have additional significance?
How do we make sense of this film, which is composed so largely of irrational, dreamlike images? Is there a pattern to its narrative? Is there any thematic consistency among the various evocations of sexuality and death?
What do you make of the various fetishistic images (often in close-up) that appear throughout the film, such as the severed hand, the hand with ants running around in it, the dead moth, and the piano with dead donkeys on top of it?
Commenting on this film, Buñuel almost seems to be daring us to enjoy it, when he writes scornfully of "this imbecilic crowd that has found beautiful or poetic that which, at heart, is nothing other than a desperate, impassioned call for murder." Discuss. Do you find the film beautiful or poetic? Do you accept Buñuel's characterization of his handiwork?