Word: uel
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...Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972). As Luis Buñuel's eccentric characters roam the French countryside in search of a good meal, a hilarious dream world comes to life...
Outlandish as it may seem, it is possible that some day Animator Chuck Jones may come to be regarded as the American Buñuel. Like the Spanish master, Jones finds his great subject in obsession, and he understands that finally, all truly memorable comedy results from observing creatures caught helplessly in the grip of irrational, inexplicable passions. Buñuel's obsessives are all sexually motivated; Jones' great creation, Wile E. Coyote, has a loftier theme: the annihilation of that uncannily shrewd nemesis the Road Runner...
This is why, in Obscure Object, Buñuel pulls the fiendish stunt of casting two actresses as Conchita, and then proceeds to interchange them at whim. It is his way of saying that the movie's subject is Mathieu's obsessive desire rather than the 'obscure object" that brings it about. There are many other rude jokes as well, all designed to pull the rug out from under civilization as we know it. Buñuel casts a dwarf as a professor of psychology and dreams up a clerical terrorist group called the Revolutionary Army...
...anarchy of Bu@#241;uel's vision, there is nothing chaotic about his filmmaking style. At 77, he is in such fluid touch with his 'medium that he seems incapable of staging an awkward shot. The movie appears to flow directly from his subconscious, just as surrealist art is meant to do. Fernando Rey, a veteran of a decade of Buñuel films, finds as much baroque humor in his many bouts with coitus interruptus as he did in the unfinished eating scenes of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. The two mysterious Conchitas - one svelte (Carole...
...Obscure Object is not quite as good as Discreet Charm (1972) and Tristana (1969), the two Buñuel masterpieces it most resembles, the problem is one of tone. The new film opens on a note of antic humor only to turn, in the second half, unrelievedly grave: as Mathieu and Conchita's relationship lapses into sadomasochistic games, Buñuel's irony gives way to a surprising display of personal despair. The sudden shift in mood does not work, but it is forgivable. Having given his life to one of the century's great artistic revolutions...