The Exterminating Angel (1962)
(El Angel Exterminador)
Country: MEX
Technical: bw 95m
Director: Luis Buñuel
Cast: Silvia Pinal, Enrique Rambal, Jacqueline Andere
Synopsis:
Haute-bourgeois invitees arrive at a palatial house for a meal but find they are unable to leave.
Review:
Like an American disaster movie without a disaster: as always with Buñuel there is no logical explanation for the predicament, but it is a dream, an intrusion of the irrational on the ordered, which allows him to explore certain themes. Put simply, the social and religious habits of the bourgeoisie are 'traps', or rather muzzles for their barely suppressed bestial natures. During the movie we see these muzzles drop away as the conventional restraints are removed, and at the end, when, oblivious to a society in chaos, they give thanks in church for their liberation, their bestiality (the sheep) comes running in on them, and they are trapped once more. The final image of the sheep is of course open to other interpretations, and could be a foil like the 'Vive Chiappe!' conclusion to Diary of a Chambermaid. But this is one of the director's richest tapestries and a high point of his Mexican career.
(El Angel Exterminador)
Country: MEX
Technical: bw 95m
Director: Luis Buñuel
Cast: Silvia Pinal, Enrique Rambal, Jacqueline Andere
Synopsis:
Haute-bourgeois invitees arrive at a palatial house for a meal but find they are unable to leave.
Review:
Like an American disaster movie without a disaster: as always with Buñuel there is no logical explanation for the predicament, but it is a dream, an intrusion of the irrational on the ordered, which allows him to explore certain themes. Put simply, the social and religious habits of the bourgeoisie are 'traps', or rather muzzles for their barely suppressed bestial natures. During the movie we see these muzzles drop away as the conventional restraints are removed, and at the end, when, oblivious to a society in chaos, they give thanks in church for their liberation, their bestiality (the sheep) comes running in on them, and they are trapped once more. The final image of the sheep is of course open to other interpretations, and could be a foil like the 'Vive Chiappe!' conclusion to Diary of a Chambermaid. But this is one of the director's richest tapestries and a high point of his Mexican career.
(El Angel Exterminador)
Country: MEX
Technical: bw 95m
Director: Luis Buñuel
Cast: Silvia Pinal, Enrique Rambal, Jacqueline Andere
Synopsis:
Haute-bourgeois invitees arrive at a palatial house for a meal but find they are unable to leave.
Review:
Like an American disaster movie without a disaster: as always with Buñuel there is no logical explanation for the predicament, but it is a dream, an intrusion of the irrational on the ordered, which allows him to explore certain themes. Put simply, the social and religious habits of the bourgeoisie are 'traps', or rather muzzles for their barely suppressed bestial natures. During the movie we see these muzzles drop away as the conventional restraints are removed, and at the end, when, oblivious to a society in chaos, they give thanks in church for their liberation, their bestiality (the sheep) comes running in on them, and they are trapped once more. The final image of the sheep is of course open to other interpretations, and could be a foil like the 'Vive Chiappe!' conclusion to Diary of a Chambermaid. But this is one of the director's richest tapestries and a high point of his Mexican career.