The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie - Criterion Collection (1972)

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Through a series of interrupted dinners and bizarre dream sequences (even dreams-within-dreams), Luis Buñuel, clearly indulging himself, comically portrays the wealthy elite as incredibly vain, shallow, and hypocritical. These people engage in drug-dealing, infidelities, and other sordid pursuits. The situations in which Buñuel places them are absurd and only serve to highlight their utter baseness.

Believe it or not, I actually had fleeting thoughts of "Seinfeld" when in a dream sequence these self-centered yet perversely likable characters (a dinner interrupted again!) all find themselves in a jail cell.

"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" is not my favorite Luis Buñuel film. I personally like Belle de Jour and That Obscure Object of Desire more. To me, the humor feels a little dated when viewing it today. Yes, some things made me smile, but the enjoyment I had was more due to the performances. Delphine Seyrig is always fascinating to watch, elegance personified. Bulle Ogier as Seyrig's boozy sister and the always authoritative Fernando Rey as the corrupt ambassador were equally superb.
September 5, 2008

The Stuff of Dreams

"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" unfolds with the absurd logic of a recurrent dream, and since the DVD has been beautifully restored, one is able to dream the dream in vivid color: Elegantly dressed guests arrive for a dinner party only to have the hostess inform them that they have arrived on the wrong night; thus, they keep making appointments for dinners that are continually interrupted for one reason or another--all of the reasons being as patently ridiculous as are the characters: a bishop, who arrives at the house and asks to be hired as a gardener, and then relates the story of his macabre childhood; a soldier, who arrives at a restaurant (that has run out of tea and coffee), asks to join the ladies, whom he has never met before, and relates the story of his macabre childhood; a General, who arrives with his platoon a day early at the same house with the same hostess in time for dinner, and then, after the General invites a Private to relate the story of his macabre dream to the hosts and the invited guests (who listen attentively), both General and platoon depart for maneuvers (but not before inviting all the guests to his house for dinner, where even more macabre events unfold.). Thus, the dreams contain dreams within dreams within dreams within dreams within dreams et cetera ad absurdum.

This film is for anyone who has ever had recurrent nightmares of waiting for a bus on the wrong corner; of being about to take a test only to discover that one has studied the wrong subject; of being about give a lecture only to discover that one has forgotten the notes; or of performing on stage with a mouth stuffed with peanut-butter when one's cue is coming up. All the absurd commonplaces that make perfect sense when one is dreaming. And much of the "discreet charm" of the bourgeois characters in this film derives from the fact that one is dreaming their nightmares and not one's own. July 1, 2008

Buñuel's best film.

This is arguably Buñuel's best film. Described as "a complex, shifting, virtually plotless web of dreams within dreams within dreams," Luis Buñuel's 1972 Academy Award winning surrealist film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie) chronicles five derailed dinner parties of a group of three affluent Parisian couples, intermixed with four dreams dreamt by different characters. The sextet of friends includes Rafael Acosta (Fernando Rey), François Thévenot (Paul Frankeur), Simone Thévenot (Delphine Seyrig), Florence (Bulle Ogier), Alice Sénéchal (Stéphane Audran), and Henri Sénéchal (Jean-Pierre Cassel). Although they constantly arrive for dinner parties, they never actually eat. Whether they arrive on the wrong night, or there's a corpse in the next room, their plans are always thwarted by some absurd complication. Meanwhile, secrets involving adultery, perversions, boredom, hypocrisies, military maneuvers, and drug smuggling are revealed beneath the surface of their "polite," bourgeois facade. Buñuel breaks all the narrative rules in this film. Dreams interrupt scenes and unpredictabile surreal twists interrupt the film's narrative in a way that might be described as Monty Python at its most extreme. While other filmmakers are retired at age 72, Buñuel was at his charming best.

Criterion's two-disc edition of this masterpiece includes a new high-definition film transfer, El náufrago de la calle de Providencia (The Castaway on the Street of Providence, 1970): a 24-minute documentary homage to Buñuel by his friends Arturo Ripstein and Rafael Castanedo, A propósito de Buñuel (Speaking of Buñuel, 2000): a new 98-minute documentary on the life and work of Buñuel by Jose Luis López-Linares and Javier Rioyo, the original theatrical trailer, and new and improved English subtitles. Highly recommended, must-see cinema.

G. Merritt October 12, 2007

The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie

One of the Spanish master's funniest films, the Oscar-winning "Charm" gleefully savages the manners and mores of the upper crust, employing bizarre plotlines and fanciful farce to attack the well-heeled scions of respectable society as vain, decadent, elitist, and thoroughly amoral. Rey, Seyrig, and New Wave icon Ogier head the stellar ensemble cast, with Julien Bertheau standing out as a pompous, not-so-holy bishop. Buñuel's dream-within-a-dream sequences, which involve ghosts, terrorists, and sundry other characters, are simply brilliant, and bring this sublime, extended joke to the verge of divine absurdity. July 5, 2007

Incredible Charm of Surrealism

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.

March 16, 2007

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