Word: bunuel
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...alive, if not always well, in the Third World, Paz believes, and his primary concern is to save them. In his quest for allies he ranges far and wide. He examines fellow Latin American artists like Pablo Neruda (whom he calls "a poetic continent") and the film maker Luis Bunuel (whom he compares to Goya). He looks to Marshall McLuhan, then looks away from him -as a "prophet," alas, only of Madison Avenue...
BUNEUL HAS LITTLE PITY for his protagonists. He demonstrates their greed, lechery, and dishonesty while seemingly delighting in their violent and humiliating fantasies. Passionately convinced that "we have not made the best of all possible worlds," Bunuel once said he wanted to "show with a cold white eye what they have done here on earth in the name...
However, the effect of his irony can be to distance his audience from his meaning. As a moralist, Buneul's values prove elusive. Though the audience may know that Bunuel has said, "I am not interested in society. I like people but not human society," the ambiguity as to how one is supposed to feel about the characters seems almost intentional. One can almost judge Bunuel to be unconcerned that his audience understand what he is saying...
...Bunuel has changed since he collaborated with Salvador Dali in 1929 to make the surrealistic film "Le Chien Andalou," whose release one stunned critic called "a date in the history of the cinema, a date marked with blood." His latest movie is kinder, less harrowing than past works. Though Bunuel is shrewdly anti-sentimental in stripping his bourgeoisle of its sanctuaries, it may even by permissible not to feel enraged by his six sturdy representatives of the middle class...
...does so in parts with something close to lightheartedness. Watch for the scene in which Francois gives a demonstration lecture on the art of mixing dry martinis, at one point remarking that the ice must be very firm and very cold, about 32 degrees, and notice how discreet Bunuel himself is about the charm of his bourgeoisie...