The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

This is an odd little film about some people who never do get to sit down to the meal they plan on having. A lot of weird and unexpected stuff intervenes--during which you learn a little more about the characters (particularly how unlikeable some of them are). The problem I had with the movie is this--it just wasn't very interesting and I repeatedly felt like turning it off because I found it more boring than compelling. Now this is not because of the surreal nature of the film--I have a relatively high tolerance for the strange and unconventional (just look at my glowing review for the VERY surreal Happiness of Katakuris). It's just that strange as it was, it just wasn't too interesting nor was it weird enough to make that great an impression. I know it puts me in a very small minority, but most of the Luis Buñuel films I have seen were not that compelling--odd yes, but not particularly interesting. About the only one I really liked was the sad film "Tristan".

UPDATE: I've seen most of the director's films since I wrote this review. I did find several (other than "Tristan") that I really did like. However, I still think he had about as many hits as misses and feel he was a bit overrated. But, films like "Robinson Crusoe" and "The Young One" are indeed exceptional films.

Fmovies: In Bunuel's "Discreet Charm" we see a film about life! The desire to "feed" one's self is used through out the film. The dinner party is always broken up and they never get a chance to eat. They never go a chance to feed their desires in life be it food or sex. This is used a symbol to show that people are always starving inside and they are always searching (hence the last shot of the film!) A brilliant film by one of the greatest directors of film! 10 out of 10!!

Bunuel's career was one of the most sensational you could dream of.At least ten of his movies are among my favorites and ten others are not far behind.

Once he said :" when I was young and I was watching the sky and saying :"it's beautiful up there and there's nothing;now,I simply say :"it's beautiful"Atheism had turned into agnosticism.Perhaps so,but Bunuel's favorite targets are still here.The bishop and the army are here to stay;they already were in "l'âge d'or" (1930)

"DIscreet charm" is a comprehensive work :it includes almost everything that made Bunuel the genius every cine buff loves ;his permanent features are all included: these bourgeois walking on an endless road are the same who were locked up in the house in "el angel exterminador";Rabal trying to catch one more peace of meat is like the men who were fighting for water in "el angel" .THe selfishness of the bourgeoisie is given a stunning treatment:the impossibility to get a good meal .Bunuel explodes certitudes and he explodes different genres.One of them is the light comedy with its adulteries,its mistaken identities and its contretemps.and if the message is not clear enough,one of the scenes shows the characters on a stage!Another one is the horror and fantasy film : the young boy's mother asking him to kill his father (who is actually not his parent);and most of all the soldier's dream which could provide the substance for at least a whole movie.

Dreamlike sequences are Bunuel's forte .He has sometimes been equaled (André Delvaux:"un soir un train" ) but never surpassed: just think of Pablo's dream in "los olvidados" ;the Christ on the electric wires in "cela s'appelle l'aurore" ;Séverine's fantasies in "Belle de Jour" ;Rey's head as a bell clapper in "Tristana".But in "discreet charm" Bunuel seems to connect all the links of the chain and his film becomes a tapestry of Bayeux where dreams and reality follow naturally. "I dreamed ,Thevenot says,that Senechal dreamed that he was on a stage and ..." It' s "Jacob's ladder" twenty years before that later movie appears.

It's also a political movie,but not a work for highbrows .What he did not fully achieved with the spotty "la fièvre monte à El Pao" ,and the more interesting "death in the garden" ,Bunuel pulls it off with gusto here.The republic (sic) of Miranda whose ambassador is none other than Rey is ,even if we never see it , depicted in minute lavish detail .Unlike highbrows like Godard who deals out his lecture on Mao in "la chinoise" ,Luis Bunuel remains accessible to everybody:we laugh and we laugh a lot when we discover the harsh realities of Miranda Land which has no pyramids ,but has Nazis and poverty.Actually it's not that much funny.

A word about the cast;it's perfect:Rey is wonderful as a drug trafficker ambassador who is always afraid to be slain ;Stephane Audran and Jean-Pierre Cassel had teamed up two years before in another attack against bourgeoisie ,Chabrol's "la rupture" ;Bulle Ogier,for once,forgets her usual parts who give the non-intellectual terrible headaches and manages to stay very natural;Claude Piéplu and his inimitable voice (make sure you hear his voice:nobody can dub him successfully) portrays a colorful colonel who tells the ambassador home truth and literally invades Audran'

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie fmovies. The systematic analysis of this film would be in my opinion a gigantic task, since there are so many topics, stories and references intermingled in the chaotic way the surrealists are so fond of. I think the two main topics -sometimes in surrealism there is not even one- are dreams and transgression of social norms and traditions. The film is articulated on linked-up situations: five gatherings of a group of bourgeois friends and four stories, four dreams which are dreamt by different characters. The suppers are more common in the first part of the film, and the dreams on a second part, but they alternate with each other and with other episodes, like that of the terrorist girl. At the beginning things seem not to turn out good: right the first thing we see is the perplexity of the guests to M. Senechal house when they are told the supper was planned for the next day. 'But that is impossible', says Acosta, 'I couldn't have accepted, tomorrow I'm busy'. Contradiction with no explanation, right the same way as things happens in a dream, where we accept the reality of what we dream without explanations, even if it is impossible or contradictory with something else -dreams are the core of surrealism and of this film. This baffling beginning really impressed me. There is contradiction and kind of a difficulty to do things in every single detail in the next sequence: Mme and M Senechal are invited to dine out, but she has to change. The restaurant 'n'a pas l'air gai', and the door is locked. They knock and they are invited in. The owners have changed. There is no people and the prices are cheap. Everything is suspicious. And then the first punch of the story: the manager died that afternoon and the wake has been set in the dining room since the undertaker has not yet arrived. Of course, the bourgeois leave. This is the first reference to death, a constant theme either in surrealism, in dreams and in this film. It seems as if the whole film was a dream. Within the context things are logical and normal -or seem logical and normal- to the characters, and their reactions are 'contextually' logical too, but from the outside the stories in the film are as odd as any dream we can have. E.g., when Acosta shoots the terrorist girl from his window, or when the army appeared at M. Senechal's house, or even when the bishop tells M Senechal that he wants to be the family gardener. They are baffled, but they accept the things that happen, as we are baffled by or dreams but accept their logic when we are dreaming. Social transgression is based on a subtle but scorning parody of the bourgeois class and their customs and beliefs. The bourgeois are classy, and conceited: they show off their vain culinary knowledge every time they host a supper. M. Thevenot boasts that 'discreet charm' of the bourgeois when he subtly makes fun of the chauffeur: he does not know how to drink a Martini. Later on, Acosta cheats on Thevenot when he tells him that he has to show his wife the 'sursiks'. Thevenot does not know what that is, but he is an hypocrite not to say it. The bourgeois are also extremely fond of the lowest vices and they enjoy them gaily -I do not think, on the other side, that Buñuel is condemning them, but the hypocritical attitude of the bourgeoisie. Drug trafficking and consumption, lust, alcohol. The commentaries about the younger girl vomiting and dirty nails and her ignorance (the complex of Euclides, she says at some point) point out -and laugh at- the hypocrisy in the values of the mi

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is not about something in particular . It doesn't have a plot and doesn't really need one. It is about the constant interruptions that ruin the dinners of some french bourgeoisie friends, interruptions mostly surreal and absurd. The movie is not as shocking and acid as Bunuel's earlier work but it is more chiseled and as weird and witty as those . Also, the dream sequences are made exceptionally.

The film satirizes french bourgeoisie but as I said it is not really an acid satire but a surreal comedy/drama that doesn't really have to make sense. Dream in dream sequences are often used to express the character's unrests and troubles. The movie is somehow similar to The Exterminating Angel where the characters, after they eat cannot leave the room even though there is nothing stopping them. Here, different situations interrupt the characters from eating. These situations are absurd and illogic, just like the ones in The Exterminating Angel.

The situations are absolutely amazing and Bunuel once again makes a statement. The bourgeoisie characters are shown as false and hypocritical as they are funny to the viewers. The movie is complex and unusual and different from anything you've ever seen.

Watch it! It's worth it.

There are not many artists who could tell the same joke over and over again and get away with it creating the film as brilliant, funny, absurd, witty, and clever as Buñuel's "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", 1972. The story of six friends who try to arrange and have a nice dinner together but cannot complete (or even start) their meal does not sound very exiting but wait until you watch this comedy. I've always known how interesting surrealism is but I never thought how funny it could be. I've seen the film four or five times - it only gets better with each viewing. Highly recommended.

9.5/10.