The Phantom of Liberty (1974) - Luis Buñuel

The end for the film career of the great Luis Buñuel was approaching, his cinematographic style was already fully developed, and he had the power, at that point, to be able to shoot his artistic concerns without major constraints. Maintaining the constants of his last years of work, that is, working in collaboration with Jean-Claude Carrière as his co-writer, and the french actors who became his constant companions in that final stage, he creates one of his freest films, probably the greatest in that sense, where all his surrealist force will vigorously flow. It is a film that practically lacks plot, it lacks a conventional synopsis, because, being titled The Phantom of Liberty, what Buñuel does is showing a series of delirious situations, situations in theory absurd, illogical, completely contrasted situations that at the bottom are sliding the usual topics of the filmmaker, an artificial and hypocritical society in its moral postulates, in the laws, among other subjects. One of the most endearing films of the director, which, although it was also one of the movies that most work and sacrifice meant for him, must have been one of the greatest satisfactions the spaniard had, who was already closing his brilliant career, waiting for his latest film.

                   

In 1808, we see Napoleonic soldiers invading spanish soil and carrying out executions, after which, already in the present, some girls receive indecent photographs. The father of one of them is Foucauld (Jean-Claude Brialy), he discovers the photos, famous monuments, then go to the doctor. The nurse of the doctor (Milena Vukotic), must travel to see his sick father, arrives at an inn, where she meets some monks, and the young François (Pierre-François Pistorio), who arrives with his aunt (Hélène Perdrière). Everyone then meets the hatter Berman (Michael Lonsdale), who performs a masochist session. The next morning, she says goodbye to the innkeeper (Paul Frankeur), and takes in her car a teacher, (François Maistre), is a teacher of gendarmes, to whom he refers a unique story about a lunch, defecating in a living room, eating in private. Then, Mr. Legendre (Jean Rochefort) is diagnosed with cancer, he hides it from his wife, he is informed that his daughter has disappeared, and despite the fact that the girl is in his presence, the respective denunciation is made to the police, start the search. Then, a man (Pierre Lary) shoots from the top of a building, kills numerous people, is prosecuted, condemned and released. The police prefect (Julien Bertheau) knows a woman identical to his deceased sister, there is an episode of close necrophilia, he is imprisoned, after which, shots are heard in a zoo.

Thus ends one of the best known films and one that has Buñuel's highest consideration, completely ascribed to his final stage, a surrealism of a certain sophistication, a set of events apparently without the slightest connection or common point, and that, curiously, at the beginning of the film is said to be based on a story by the famous spanish writer Bécquer, although certainly only the initial segment is. This proem situates us in Toledo, 1808, year of Napoleonic invasion, one of the invading characters, in tears, tries to kiss a female statue, receiving physical corrective of the male counterpart, as correcting the excesses of the invaders, subtle figure the slipped, that some politic tint may have. Adequate opening, because in this film we will find, at times, at opinion of the co-writer Carrière, printed some of the greatest concerns and aspirations of surrealism, because Breton defined, in the surrealist manifesto, the moment when contradictions disappeared, as one of the greater peaks of this movement. The black and the white, the day and the night, the defecation in a living room, eating food in the privacy of what is obviously a bathroom, the conventional is shattered, the oppositions lose meaning in the buñuelian picture. "I hate the symmetry," says one man, the same one who says to his wife "you came back", responding her that she did not even come out; "the sea is no longer the sea," he says later, absurd, ridiculous situations are already being slipped, perfectly crowned with the sequence of discovery of the photos, is delighting appreciating the indignation of the libidinous spouses when the images finally reveal themselves. One of the greatest deliriums of the film, one of the greatest entertainments, is undoubtedly when the hatter gives free rein to his morbid hobbies, delirium as exquisite as fun, when his enthusiasm grows as the group of guests increases to his room, who do not imagine what comes next. The dementia of that sequence reaches its climax when everyone sees his wife whipping him, and as everyone quickly retreats upon seeing the masochistic situation, the host utters "at least let the monks remain!", Buñuel's humor at its best.

A doctor tells his patient that he has liver cancer, and after the sudden news, offers him a cigarette, delirium does not stop. "Here I am" indicates later the daughter of the patient, who has just been lost, and who will be intensely searched, is in the noses of adults all the time; a figure, a situation, confessedly desired by the filmmaker, a youth desire that he could not shoot, and that he can now finally capture. Another of the absurd situations, the sniper killer, is condemned in court, then freed from the handcuffs, goes out into the street, to receive acclamations and requests for autographs; it is undoubtedly the film in which the oppositions, the absurd, reach climax in the filmography of spanish, a world where a candle is lit and then light comes on, among so many other contradictions. The referential event, by the way, of group defecation, in public, in a group of toilets, happens after the prolegomenon of the teacher with his gendarmes students, to whom he explains the complex and relative human laws, conventions that are supposed to seek social harmony, but it is precisely that one of the topics that Buñuel attacked most tenaciously during his career, the hypocrisy and double morality of society, which subjugates the individual, suppresses his freedom, making it a phantom. The surrealism of Buñuel has reached its climax in the twilight, does not distil the debauchery of his early years, that easy manner disappears, now that surrealism seems stylized, inserts itself into "logical" situations, and are these antitheses where the power, the strength of the surrealism of the final stage of the filmmaker come from, a kind of disorganization within the organized, destructures the already structured. Now we have many characters, and not six around whom will flow, will gravitate the unlikely events, as happened in the case of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), now there are more than a dozen, of greater or lesser importance, but many, it is a parade of deliriums, of absurd situations, although the filmmaker has sometime denied this latter. Shine shoes, car rides, these subtle actions now become vehicles to move from one circumstance to another, connecting the facts, and this because certainly would be all unrelated events, without a natural link, completely non-connected events except for a character who leads, connects with the following situation, articulating the story, structuring a little of what is being related; for example, the inn becomes one of the common points, both for the characters and for the stories to be linked.

He also slides his infallible eroticism, the nurse who changes discreetly and can not stop showing the director some recognizable detail; we will also see the elderly aunt, naked, and the masochist woman changing clothes. Without a doubt, the years, the decades have passed, and the freedoms for that type of images in a film have grown, to Buñuel's approval. The entomologist who is inside will not be absent either, in the figure of the tarantulas shown, and the little girl of the beginning will also change her photos for others ones of arachnids. His bestiary will grow again, the chicken appears, in the form of a rooster now, a Buñuelian element that has always stood out, then a dark figure with a candle, then a bicycle postman, an ostrich, and everything in the spouses' bedroom, all at night, it is the first delirium, the oneiric is already fully embodied, in a scenario that is divided from time, as it is marked by the clock that advances arbitrarily. Religion, another inescapable watchword in the thanks to God atheist filmmaker, is similarly reflected in the acid portrait of the monks, followers of Saint Joseph discussing holiness, whether it is a decoration or not, they are Carmelites who play cards, use scapulars and virgins as bet cards, a delirium that flows quietly, without fuss, almost naturally, the filmmaker is already mature. Another curious incursion of death in the film will be appreciated, with the character who desires his sister, the prefect of police who nobody recognizes as such, protagonist of necrophilic and powerful hint, that we had already seen sketched with the duke and his morbid Addictions in Belle de jour (1967), the sad and famously censored sequence, now presented somewhat more attenuated. Technically, it has also been reached the end stage of the director, with his camera that behaves without any more spectacular or ostentation hints, only with quiet travellings that follow the actions, sliding with resolute serenity. Buñuel finally enjoys with the animals of the Zoo, final interests of spanish emerge, final figures, in the sequence we hear gunshots, a nature for his filmic closure not seen for the first time in the director. He wanted to capture a certain disturbing air in that final, says the iberian, with that ostrich whose elongated eyelashes seemed false, feminine, a surreal ending, an ending like the film. A septuagenarian Buñuel seems to be rolling free of constraints, of constrictions, without compromises or obligations, as if shooting for his own satisfaction, to express his obsessions of youth not consummated; of course, this generates debates, about the real intentions of the director. There is no shortage of those who are outraged by an attitude in the director that they consider excessively playful with the viewer, infuriating some critics. The truth is that the film, once again, should not be looked for an explanation or logical thread. It is the film that most cost the director and screenwriter, more than two years of hard work, but at the same time probably one of the most rewarding for both artists. The giant Buñuel performs his penultimate film, the end was already around the corner, he continues to work with his loyal french actors, the well-known Paul Frankeur, Julien Bertheau, Milena Vukotic and Michel Piccoli, who are joined by the distinguished Michael Lonsdale, Jean Rochefort, among others. The decline of a genius was approaching, some of his majors, and final cinematographic jewels are already getting shape, it was time for the great culmination of his work, That obscure object of desire (1977).