Word: bunuel
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...sort of conduct eludes Bunuel's austere sense of outrage. An atheist who once remarked "I do not believe, thank God," Bunuel in his film mocks his own disgust at the corrupt and rigid structure of the Catholic Church. Though the sins of the clergy in this movie are venial and not carnal, they are still exposed. A bishop, on his way to give a dying man absolution, meets a peasant woman who whispers, "Father, I want to tell you something. I don't like Jesus Christ...Ever since I was a little child, I have hated him." Aghast...
EVEN AT THE AGE of 72, Luis Bunuel does not make movies, surrealistic or not, that are intelligible to all. The difficulty with Bunuel's new film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, is that it is possible to enjoy it without being certain how to react to it. The first audience one night recently left the movie bemused and unconvinced. A couple admired it, saying "That's wild," then wondered, "What's he doing?" The next audience that evening never stopped laughing. One might well ask, as does one confused character when caught in an uncomfortable situation midway through...
...police, who were "trying to win the love of the people" are also targets Bunuel's cruel humor. So is the Ambassador from Miranda, a country which resembles the Spain of Franco which Bunuel fought against and still bitterly opposes. In a dream sequence, antagonized by guests at a dinner party given by a French colonel, the Ambassador kills his host who has jeered, "I didn't know that chivalry still existed in your semi-savage country." If these are jokes, they are sadistic and blasphemous ones...
...familiar not only from Bunuel's Viridiana and Tristana but also as the crafty dope smuggler in The French Connection, plays the ambassador of a country called Miranda; his exquisitely developed sense of hypocrisy binds him close to his Parisian friends and even closer to Miss Seyrig, a friend's wife with whom he is indulging a perfunctory passion. With his companions Cassel and Frankeur, he is also earning a tidy stipend on the side by smuggling cocaine in his inviolate diplomatic briefcase. Their only concern, besides the ambassadors incessant fear of revolutionaries, is "a gang in Marseille...
...Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie lacks the intense irony of The Exterminating Angel and Viridiana. The tone is farcical, the humor sharp but somehow never wounding. Bunuel could not ever be benign, but here he seems almost lighthearted. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is his most blithe and accessible work. We enjoy it, but at the same time we miss Bunuel's bite...