At age 72 when he made this film, one of his last, Luis Buñuel showed he still had something left in the tank. The vignettes he presents here weave dreams and reality together and keep the viewer off-balance, but through it all there is a dark satire of the bourgeois. These are affluent people who aren't phased at all when a young man confesses he killed his step-father, or when a one of them finds his wife in the bedroom of another. There's a war going on nearby? No worries, let's have coffee service. Everyone around me has been gunned down, but can I just reach the food on the table to keep stuffing my face? There is no genuine human emotion here, everything is shallow, and comments are vapid. Nothing seems to phase them in their little bubble world, and that seems to be the main point, or at least, what I took away from a work that could be endlessly interpreted.
I confess the frequent revelations that what we were seeing was a dream felt a little gimmicky, but it does allow a degree of fluidity in what's put up on the screen, and also allows us to peek at what's on their minds. I liked how Buñuel's satire was usually subtle, simple non-reactions or banal behavior without hitting the viewer over the head. Hypocrisy is also exposed, e.g. A bishop being all-too-human regarding vengeance, some of the bourgeois dealing in drugs, and others going out into the bushes to ravage each other. The film held my interest but what stopped me from loving it was it sometimes seemed more interested in toying around with the viewer than developing a story line. We may be seeing the bourgeois through the eyes of a modern artist and there is something wonderful in how unconventional it is, but it wasn't the most enjoyable viewing experience, and it's not likely one I would return to.
I confess the frequent revelations that what we were seeing was a dream felt a little gimmicky, but it does allow a degree of fluidity in what's put up on the screen, and also allows us to peek at what's on their minds. I liked how Buñuel's satire was usually subtle, simple non-reactions or banal behavior without hitting the viewer over the head. Hypocrisy is also exposed, e.g. A bishop being all-too-human regarding vengeance, some of the bourgeois dealing in drugs, and others going out into the bushes to ravage each other. The film held my interest but what stopped me from loving it was it sometimes seemed more interested in toying around with the viewer than developing a story line. We may be seeing the bourgeois through the eyes of a modern artist and there is something wonderful in how unconventional it is, but it wasn't the most enjoyable viewing experience, and it's not likely one I would return to.