The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeouisie (1972)

 "Unbelievable what they smoke in the army..."

It's about time I watched and blogged another of Luis Bunuel's extraordinary late run of films, made in his sixties and seventies, and this one in particular is as good as its reputation, irinically winning an Oscar while satirising the lifestyle it represents.

The direction is, as one would expect, both superb and multifaceterd. It's all very surreal, of course, but the surrealism is not quite meaningless here, and I suspect it would reward multiple viewings very well. The surrealism is constant, but it never crosses the line into something which could never happen in real life, just skirting that line between the unlikely and the impossible. An exception is in dream sequences, which abound here, revealed to be so at the end of the scene and dreams nested within dreams. The dream sequences at their modst absurd- the sergeant's night walk in the street, the lieutenant's childhood trauma, the dinner party suddenly revealed to be on stage before an audience- are truly dreamlike in how they feel, an extraordinary achievement.

Yet this is not simply surrealism for its own sake. The central conceit is of six wealthy individuals, one of them the ambassador of a fictional South American dictatorship, are repeatedly thwarted in their desire to have a dinner party. Snobbery is a constant theme, with constant commentary on how food should be cooked or carved, or how a spirit should be prepared or consumed- at one stage a chauffeur is mocked for not sipping his drink properly. These concerns are meaningless, existing only to add artificial meaning to the lives of the privileged who are apart from the cares of the world in their aloof world of affairs and dinner parties.

The film is a visual treat, but it is certainly no "difficult" arthouse film. It is darkly funny throughout and the perferct combination of art and enjoyment. Truly one of the greats of cinema.

Belle de Jour (1967)

"What you need is a firm hand..."

I've done lots of geeky films lately and, yes, I love geeky films, but it’s time now for  subtitled foreign film from a big name director, I think. And it’s about time I tried one of Luis Bunuel’s later films, you know, the ones that actually have sound and didn’t inspire any famous songs by the Pixies.

This film is, of course, superbly directed, with a magnificent central performance by Catherine Deneuve, and very much comes across like a literary novel but with camerawork instead of prose. The film is of course about Severine- 23, newly married but still a repressed virgin but who has deeply sexual and indeed kinky fantasies- I like how horsey men with riding crops have a symbolic use throughout. A well-off woman with a maid, no less, she nevertheless ends up working in a brothel out of sheer sexual desire.

Importantly, I think, it is recognised that most women in such a position are forced into sex work by economic necessity; the character of Charlotte is there to represent this. Nor is the dark side underemphasised- customers are violent and dodgy (although, as with Marcel, bad boys have their attractions) and, most disturbingly, a client shows a deeply perverted interest in thevmadam’s visiting school age niece. But for Severine, with no economic need to do this, it’s all about the rough sex and rough treatment she needs sexually and isn’t getting at home from a husband whom she loves but who does not understand her sexual needs. Importantly, though, the film emphasises that sex is not necessarily always about men dominating women but can be the other way around by showing us a client who likes to be dominated himself. But all this takes place in a world which remains misogynistic, with Husson as an important mouthpiece for this entitled misogyny.

It would be silly, I think, to deny that this film could be very much criticised on male gaze grounds, and there is inevitably a whole host of unexamined misogynist assumptions. This is not a feminist film, and while it treats its women as three dimensional characters it presents a very male point of view. But it is, nevertheless, an extraordinary piece of work.

Un Chien Andalou (1929)

No quote, unless "wtf?!" counts.

Got me a movie, I want you to know. Slicing up eyeballs, I want you to know. Don't know about you, but this is beautiful. Also weird. But good weird.

It's rather hard to say much about the surrealism, or indeed to get any kind of grip on a film that isn't really a narrative at all. When you're looking at a movement based on Freudianism and free association it's rather hard to find anything much beyond "a bit random, innit?" to say about the various weird scenes. The captions denoting that it's "eight years later" or "sixteen years earlier" are presumably supposed to indicate the random way time passes in dreams, much like cutting between scenes in a film, so I suppose that's a bit metatextual. The man's unexpected assault on the woman's boobs is probably supposed to be some sort of illustration of how the id is let loose within dreams- Freud and all that- but I'm otherwise wary to use phrases like "supposed to be" at all. I have pretty much the same attitude about Salvador Dali's paintings. What do you say about them beyond "Ooh, a bit Freudian, dreamlike and therefore random"?

What matters for the surrealism to work is that the film should look gorgeous and be creatively shot. Thanks to extraordinary work from Luis Buñuel, it does and it is. The use of light, camera angles and dissolves makes the whole thing look gorgeous and appropriately weird. It helps, from a 2012 perspective, that it all now looks so charmingly period, with the look of the cars, the relative lack of them and, yes, the clothes. The flapper looks gorgeous. The hats look cool. The beachwear is, er, less so. Tanktops, on the beach? Really?

I'm glad I've seen this film though- it really is beautiful and, although I'm sure the makers wouldn't thank me for saying so, a charming document of intellectual thought between the wars. You should see it too; it's on YouTube, and it's only sixteen minutes. Go on.