In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined.
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This came in the outstanding 10-DVD boxed set 'Rialto Pictures: 10 Years', one of the finest things I've bought from The Criterion Collection (and a great deal too, one I'd heartily endorse). I had to wait an entire day, after watching the dreadful 'Disaster Movie', to get the acrid taste out of my mouth to watch this one, by my fourth favourite director ever ('Viridiana' is still probably my favourite of his, though). Luckily it had three of my favourite French actors from the period, in Bulle Ogier (just check out 'Maitresse' if you don't understand why), Delphine Seyrig and Fernando Rey (for the two 'French Connection' films alone)--even though for a director of Bunuel's strength, any actors could have sufficed. It's the ideas that stand out most triumphantly. It's most known for being Bunuel's Oscar-winner for Best Foreign Language Film, but its OTHER nomination is what's almost neglected when people talk about him. Yes, they talk about Bunuel the director, or (from David Thomson) Bunuel the photographer, but people never realize his two nominations for the Calanda, Spain-native were never for director, but for writing (with another nod for his swan song, 'The Obscure Object of Desire').
It's quite a difficult film to review this, as it essentially has no real plot and very little structure. It is a series of dream sequences following a group of friends - each with some form of skeleton in their closet - as they try to meet for a dinner that repeatedly gets aborted. Fernando Rey is on good form as the Ambassador from the Republic of "Miranda" - a man living in fear for his life from revolutionaries at home, and who is also not averse to adding a little spice to the contents of the diplomatic bag. Jean-Pierre Cassel and Stéphane Audran are the "Sénéchal" couple - they like a bit of al fresco nookie; the "Thévenot" couple (Delphine Seyrig and Paul Frankeur) are ostensibly the most normal of the group, though the latter has a bit going on the side with "Florence" (Bulle Ogier). We are never quite sure why they are friends at all, but none of that really matters. It is the very unstructured nature of this that makes it work. Each of their dreams offers us a different - sometimes amusing, sometimes rather violent - short story as the group try to sit down to eat. Personally, I was rather fond of the gardening Bishop "Dufour" (Julien Bertheau) who seems to flit between his religious and gardening garb as if by magic. The dialogue isn't maybe the best, but the scenarios and a lot of imagination from director Luis Buñuel combine to offer us something that is quirky and entertaining. It doesn't really need a cinema screening - the production and photography are fine but really this is all about some whacky characterisations that don't always make sense, but do engage.
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