☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½
The
Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) – L. Buñuel
Luis Buñuel is up to his usual tricks
here, trapping six members of the bourgeoisie in an endless cycle of
interrupted dinner and luncheon dates and using the occasions to inject a
healthy dose of surrealism and satire into the film. So, there is no plot to speak of but a steady
stream of jokes – some of them “in jokes” such as Fernando Rey secretly being a
drug dealer (as he is in the contemporaneous French Connection). At several moments in the film, minor characters
interrupt the action to describe vivid and haunting dreams that they have had
(apparently dreams that Bunuel himself really had) and then, later, the main
characters take turns waking up in the middle of certain anecdotes, suggesting
that it has all been a dream and/or a dream within a dream. Commentators have noted that most of the
interruptions in the film stop the characters from enacting their deepest
motivations (for eating, drinking, sex, etc.) so perhaps Buñuel really is a
wily old bastard subjecting them to this – or perhaps even deeper he is telling
us how society’s conventions (which the Bourgeoisie love) stand in the way of
real fulfilment.
No comments:
Post a Comment