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).

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) - Luis Buñuel

Buñuel's latest film triad, which begins with the film now commented, forms a triptych among the best known by the filmmaker, the twilight of the director, with which he would reach the final shape in the long evolution of his cinematographic style. In this opportunity Buñuel is responsible for the development of the script, himself with the collaboration, of course, of his ever loyal Jean-Claude Carrière, a script that ran for Best Original Screenplay in the Oscars of that year, a film that won the statuette for Best Foreign Film, probably the most internationally awarded work and one of the most widely disseminated. Vigorous surrealism flows throughout the film, in which again uses the filmmaker a fractured narrative structure in which he combines indiscriminately and in a way almost impossible to discern, reality and dream, fantasy and reality, memories or present. Always being loyal to his winks, to his figures, to his language, presents to us the filmmaker the simple story of a group of bourgeois who, due to real or unreal reasons, can not hold a dinner, and the film will be simply the journey through these delirious adventures. An already completely settled again in Europe Buñuel, with all the freedom and amplitude of resources in french soil, already working with his final acting team, presents one of his most reputable works.

              

To a residence, a group of aristocrats arrive, Don Rafael Acosta (Fernando Rey), François (Paul Frankeur) and Simone Thévenot (Delphine Seyrig), and Florence (Bulle Ogier), the host is Alice Sénéchal (Stéphane Audran), go to dine, but because of a misunderstanding, they must leave. Trying to dine in a restaurant, they run into a wake, leave. Don Rafael, ambassador of Miranda, receives Henri Sénéchal (Jean-Pierre Cassel), the other host, and Thévenot, they negotiate cocaine. The Monsignor Dufour (Julien Bertheau) arrives at the Sénéchal residence, asking to be a gardener of the house, being accepted. The three women go to another restaurant, where all the drinks are over, and where a soldier refers them to a memory. Simone and Rafael maintain adultery. A dinner of distinguished people is made, also interrupted, now by a military regiment, one of which tells them of another dream, there are shootings, the dinner never materializes. Another attempt at a snack ends in a play, they do not achieve anything; in an elegant meeting, Don Rafael kills a man who insults him, it is another dream. The Monsignor continues to work in the Sénéchal garden, and one day, being an orphan as a child, he has to confess to the murderer of his parents on his deathbed, he kills him. After all are arrested, military intervention again, the dinner never takes place, they walk on a road.

The film is an authentic Buñuelian reference, probably his work better known internationally, that for sure in large measure due to his success at the Academy Awards, a film totally surreal, but with a surrealism no longer delirious in the way of his beginnings, but in the manner of the director's maturity. Thus, the surreal, the implausible, is reflected from the initial sequence, the bourgeois approach the house of one of their comrades, only to find that the host is not there, only find his wife, she not knowing that dinner was that night, she thought it was still the next night. The delirious parade of dementia will not stop then, then they go to a restaurant, they find it empty, and what is more, they find in full development a wake, the corpse combined with dinner; although the rupture of the limit between reality and dream or fantasy has not yet manifested, situations are already denoting delirium. Among the unprecedented situations, in an elegant restaurant there is nothing to drink, no coffee, no tea, no water, no infusions, then a lieutenant tells the sordid story of seeing his dead mother, who speaks to him and gives some guidelines to eliminate who he mistakenly believes his father. In another moment of the most delirious and best achieved, we have another attempt at dinner, again frustrated, this time appearing all in the middle of a play, which in turn will end up being a dream of Thévenot; a total delirium. We see the extraordinary sequence of the militia's incursion, in one of the umpteenth attempts of dinner, after which, surreally, Fernando Rey is hidden under the table, and when faced by the military, with singular indifference he eats a bread with ham, always under the table, in a figure that seems to have been insinuated in Belle de jour (1967). A representatively surreal image of the film is the recidivist figure of the six protagonists walking, elegantly dressed and walking on an open road, with no near destination or apparent destination, without meaning, like the very meaning of the film, which does not seek logic, but show us a compilation of dream situations, with the nuances of the filmmaker. Buñuel even inserts events or sequences that have no direct connection with other events, such as the lieutenant and his story of his dead mother. In that sense, death was always one of the recurring themes in the cinema of Spanish, but in this opportunity takes other forms, the dead mother of the lieutenant appears with dead lividity, the father also appears with the flagrant wound of the duel that ended with his life. The sergeant will again relapse on the subject of the dead who contact directly with living beings, the military officer who daily griefs, another unusual approach to the dead returning, dead among the living, supernatural subject that will certainly be a striking and paranormal novelty in the work of the filmmaker, surprising both well-known and strangers, is the final style of the spanish that finishes polishing all his edges.

Now, another one of the figures of all the life in Buñuel, the aristocrats, returns to be center of the film, but with new and particular nuances of his, final worries or topics arise in the film director, now there are also politicians, politicians who traffic cocaine. On this occasion, the police returns to be embodied in Buñuel's film, no longer with the loathing of Don Lope in Tristana (1970), but it is not safe from being ridiculed by his office with the implausible arrest of all the aristocrats; similarly, there are other issues, there is terrorism, in the form of the girl, growth and demographic explosion, chimeric freedoms that reach their peak in the next film, The Phantom of Liberty (1974), are diversified in the end the usual topics of the director. But returning to the bourgeois, these are shown, in their actions, ruinous, despicable, of dubious morals, strutting their artificial sophistication, their discreet charm, as when Thévenot presumed his knowledge in the consumption and preparation of beverages. Traffickers, beings who practice adultery among themselves, reaches the climax of the topic of the bourgeoisie, already outlined in The Golden Age (1930), in The Exterminating Angel (1962), mixed with the surreal delirium of the final stage, of the final maturity of the Iberian. We will see funny moments of the experiences of these bourgeois, we have Florence, always hungry for vices, alcohol, marijuana, denying her addiction, but always with her drunkenness, is at times a vaudeville parade of the miseries and absurdities, delirium of these aristocrats; but beware, that entertainment is not the crux of the film. In the same way, the very particular religious vision of Buñuel will again be reflected in the figure of the Monseñor, a prominent religious who works as a gardener, forgetting even his patron at a certain moment his status as a cleric. To continue enriching his always particular view of the Christian religion, we have the powerful figure of the Monsignor, meeting in an unthinkable way the very murderer of his parents, when he was a child, now being a gardener -like the one who ended the life of his parents-, and the priest, in a sign that his humanity surpasses his figure as a man of God, shoots who made him an orphan. And of course, we have the very brief but present sequence of Muni -the actress of whom Buñuel said that in France became something like his pet, an assiduous in his final films- asserting that he hates Christ, an assertion that does not get answered, the priest pushes it away, leaving that door open. Buñuel was a filmmaker who in his cinema, almost above all things, always expressed frustrations, he was always interested in frustrations, he had no problem affirming it in one of his many interviews, and in that sense is exemplary and referential the amour fou never consummated in The Golden Age, now we have the frustration of the sexual act that is not consumed twice, the Thévenot, and the adulterers Simone and Rafael. In addition to of course, dinner, dinner that never happens.

It is probably Buñuel's film in which the narrative structure is more fractured, a constant dislocation of the perspective entangles the narrative articulation, through insertions, insertions of dreams, dreams that are presented as such, or memories, or games with visions of the dead, everything is woven and fused with reality; neither police nor militia are safe from the corrosive Buñuelian surrealism, the military interrupts another dinner, smoke marijuana, and then everything is interrupted again, everything is apparently part of another dream. The commissar, Thévenot, the sergeant, the lieutenant, Don Rafael, another soldier, all of them, thanks to the freedom to refer dreams, become escape routes from the linearity of the story, a universe where the imaginary and South American Miranda exists, where ignorances sometimes, vilifications as well, are pointed by the aristocrats. Buñuel was already experienced, experienced in breaking that fine dividing line of reality and onirism, in mixing both worlds, being a pioneer in his filmography in this aspect, Belle de jour, but never showed the mastery that now exhibits in that particular section of his narrative style. Dreams, fantasies, sordid memories, and all convoluted, dreams inside dreams, is undoubtedly one of the most courageous and challenging stagings of the director, which tests the viewer himself, he definitely could no longer detach himself from that kind of narration, and the almost total freedom granted to structure his audiovisual story in this way. Thus, everything happens without explaining anything, because it is certainly not necessary, we do not delve into the psychologies of the characters, because Buñuel was never characterized by delving into the psyches of his protagonists; the circumstances, the context, often acquire preponderance over humans in Buñuel's cinema. Technically, there were certain amenities that technology allowed for the first time, it was a more placid shooting for Buñuel and that by then, with 72 years on his back, did not hurt, he could have more control of the camera thanks to new video controls, he was able to control the audio through headphones, he could shoot seated. He also uses a resource, different sounds in different situations will interrupt the viewing, they will not allow us to fully listen to character dialogues, dialogues that could help us understand their humanities, especially in the final section, with the politicians involved, a resource that increases the interest of the spectator, and that is certainly novel to appreciate in the filmmaker. We also appreciate a camera that behaves with great sobriety, serenely wanders with travellings some rooms but has no abrupt movements or camera follow-ups in hand, as in previous years; it develops now with parsimonious sobriety. He finally settled down with his acting company, the formidable Fernando Rey at the head, the beautiful muse of Chabrol, Stéphane Audran, also briefly again appears his loyal friend Michel Piccoli as Prime Minister, the acting elegance that missed the director in The Exterminating Angel, has it finally and fully. In the end, they all return to walk, that's how the film gets closed, walking aimlessly, without destiny or more explanation, everything could have been quietly the dream of some protagonist. Some will say that it is the director's major film, whose oeuvre is so gigantic, in quantitative as well as qualitative abundance, that this assertion is a bit haphazard, but there is no doubt that it is a major sample of the cinema that this extraordinary artist knew to produce. Simply unmissable filmic exercise.