Time to go a little different now, with some Mexican surrealist cinema. I must admit, on first glance, I thought the title would sound like a great name for a metal band. In any case, here’s a good an intro as any for avant-garde icon Luis Bunuel, with Exterminating Angel.
If you don’t know Bunuel, there’s two simple things to start with—his twin sensibilities of defying conventional sense, and his contempt for bourgeois structures. The second becomes very evident from the get-go here—right away, we’re introduced to our setting of a high-class dinner party, where posh pretentious types radiate contempt to servants while no doubt obsessing within over poodles and pills. You’ve got the sorts trying to one-up the other, you’ve got the gossipers, you’ve got the ones in denial—and before the festivities are over, all of them soon find themselves unable to leave the dining room. Not by anything physical, but by something that just compels them to be mentally unable to just walk away.
Why? It doesn’t matter, and it’s not anything Bunuel wants the audience to think about. Overlooking the party we can glimpse Catholic-themed paintings that perhaps suggest some sort of clue, but as the ending will make abundantly clear, any presence of theirs is an ironic one at best. The focus is on the high society here slowly degenerating from paranoia, hunger, and the eventual beginnings of madness. The setting might with others yield itself to a very static stage play direction—but the director uses all the angles he can to make things interesting, and over time, you see the dirt build up on suits and dresses, just as the fancy furniture is swept up with piling garbage and debris.
It’s that kind of film where the black and white palette enhances things, I think—the black and white of the fancy tuxedos soon contrasts with the unwashed cheeks and haggard faces. The shadows look great too, consuming the polished white all around them as time goes on.
And while things may seem odd, it’s all relatively straightforward to follow for a general audience—the overt surrealism mounts as the characters spiral down, so it certainly won’t feel unearned. Still, there’s one scene involving a disembodied hand that’ll probably just conjure the Addams Family for most now, and the claustrophobic atmosphere I enjoyed is periodically interrupted by glimpses of the outside world that until the end don’t really serve a huge amount of purpose. Bunuel would in future complain about his vision for the film having to be compromised, and I think to a degree this sort of thing is what he meant.
It is a film that had difficulties on release, though it’s still one I certainly can’t conceive say a mainstream studio in the US of the same time putting out back then. Regardless, as an intro to this style of cinema, I think it’s a decent one—you certainly won’t get lost, and the performances are mostly enjoyably intense, as you see facades of politeness peel away into spite and bitterness. And let’s just say the main themes here, of divisions and covers of civilization, aren’t any less relevant in the sixty years since. If it sounds like something you may be in the mood for, give it a shot.
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