Thursday, April 6, 2017

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)


IMDb plot summary: A surreal, virtually plotless series of dreams centered around six middle-class people and their consistently interrupted attempts to have a meal together.
Directed by Luis Buñuel. Starring Fernando Rey, Paul Frankeur, Delphine Seyrig, and Bulle Ogier.

Meh. I don't know, I can't muster up the will to care about this movie. It's not bizarre enough to be interesting from a surrealist perspective. It's mostly just long, dull stretches of rich people doing nothing and going to dinner parties and not going to dinner parties. Experimental films are always going to be tough to sell me on, as I'm first and foremost a lover of narrative, but even beyond my personal biases, it's a movie that I can't imagine anyone loving. It's not visually exciting or thematically powerful. Maybe it's politically significant? I would love to sit down with someone who actually likes this movie and find out why, because I can't find anything particularly good in it. It just sits there. Oh, except for the scene where the priest gives the dying guy last rites. That's actually a really interesting scene before we go back to yawning at our protagonists.

0.5 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie < The Man in the Iron Mask
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie < Secondhand Lions
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie < Dracula
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie < They Were Expendable
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie > Ella Enchanted
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie < The Incredible Hulk
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie > Ladies in Lavender
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie > Employee of the Month (2006)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie > The Other Sister
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie > xXx
Final spot: #2484 out of 2603.

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