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Rating: Review A:
Under the pretext of a bourgeois dinner that is continually postponed (and is NEVER consumed throughout the film), with this "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie," the Maestro Luis Buñuel delivers a bizarre visionary comedy, crazed, biting, and full of sarcasm towards the bourgeoisie and the false values it aspires to embody: the wealthy entrepreneurs (corrupt, deceitful, and drug traffickers), the clergy (more passionate about plants than men), the military (as sheepish and obtuse as few others).
An absolutely unpredictable film that unfolds in disorienting and truly pioneering visual and conceptual solutions, which often overturn its meaning elevating reality to a true parody. Memorable among others: the scene wherein the guests find themselves eating the much-desired turkey only to discover it's made of cardboard, and then, by pulling aside a curtain, they realize they are on a stage inside a theater; and that of the enigmatic Monsignor Dufour who, entering the scene, says: “I had a car, but I sold it to help the poor”. The soldier’s nightmares are truly hallucinatory, as is the bishop's vendetta who shoots his parents' murderer, effectively denying Forgiveness, and the zombie-jailers who come back to life in a frenzy of madness and nonsense that nails us to the screen.
A film suspended between dream, nightmare, and reality where layers overlap and where one gets lost trying to find a sense at all costs: a metaphor for the absurdity of life itself. It won the Oscar in 1972 amid a scandalous uproar for mocking the pillars of society at the time. A film brilliant in its linearity, relentless and sharp, with a freedom of creative vision still rarely achieved today. Certainly, it is an imperfect film with some gaps and outdated scenes (certain bourgeois behaviors now belong to the last century), but the genius of the final testament of the brilliant French director is undeniable. A film that fascinates and captivates as few do, often leaving opposing opinions. Rating: 5 stars.
Stronko
Review B:
Yeah, but what kind of film is this?! It starts almost in a traditional way and then falls apart with funeral chambers set in restaurants, conservative couples wanting to have a cozy dinner but failing, unlikely gardener bishops, army troops invading houses to eat, Paris Hilton lookalikes getting drunk on Martinis, sanctified zombie-jailers, mute terrorists selling toy dogs, and more.
An excessively forced film where anything goes and the opposite (and why not throw in the Beatles dressed as altar boys gorging on Sacher Torte imitating Leonardo’s Last Supper by Andy Warhol with Berlinguer as Matthew? At this point WHO DETERMINES the connection and the meaning? And if I added a cartoon animation clip, would it change anything? Would it improve or not? And based on what?). I ask myself (and ask YOU): isn't it “way too easy” to make films this way?
A film so “borderline” that, in the end, it makes you simply exclaim a loud “ESTICAZZI?!” without leaving you with anything or very little in hand. A film that makes you long for the linearity of certain Fellini works, who often did a somewhat similar satire (against Power or the Church), but with more irony, more storytelling pleasure and less gratuitousness.
A film that at times I like and at times I don’t. A film that from watching it repeatedly to grasp the Ultimate Secret has split my judgment and still leaves me on quite different positions today. Rating: 3 stars.
Lesto BANG
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By Blackdog
Luis Buñuel, as an old iconoclastic anarchist, uses allegory with the wise and crystal-clear detachment of one who now looks at this sick world from the moon.
The exhausting attempt of the two families to finish a meal...clamorously interrupted...Buñuel’s fierce eye shatters one by one its powerful pillars: political power, the Church, the police, and the army.
