Film: The Classics: "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" Luis Bunel circa 1972

Mr Bunel appears in ma coffee

Right get yourself back to 1972, when this film was released. Mainstream cinema had the "Godfather", Poseidon Adventure", a "Shaft" sequel. But Europe had its heavy weight directors turning out films to think by, absorb and feel, well a bit better for exposing the eyeballs to. Pasolini, Visconti, Jean Luc Goddard, the chilling, slightly deranged Herzog and the, oh so up-tight Fassbinder's "Ludwig" was a 1972 release. Then there was this movie, "The Discreet Charm". Luis Bunel had two major periods of film making. His Spanish period and the post Franco-French period and this falls into the Gallic period. There were no special effects labs tinkering with edits. To produce impact, it was the director/cinematographer and cameras that produced the "special effects". I remember the plot of this film as basically being a group of people trying to get together to have lunch and these get togethers spinning out of tangent. Lunch never seemed to make the entirety. Or coffee ran out, followed by water not available and the restaurant closing because there has been a death in the family. Get the drift. A cut of everyday with dream sequences heightened a hallucinatory effect, underscored by repetitive, at times banal conversation that would suddenly launch off left a field somewhere completely unexpected. It was certainly mind boggling in the seventies. It was cinematic surrealism at its best, ably led by the brilliant, very watchable, Fernando Rey. I can remember seeing it three times on the trot to try and understand the plot. There is one, but think Philip Glass-repetitions on a theme. In its time and place it was up there with the best European masters of cinema.

So does it last the distance? Not quite. When you remove the shock of the unexpected, surrealism tends to look a bit of a grandiose statement (think Dali-they must have knocked the socks of people first exposed to the concept-now you think clever genius painter but it doesn’t feed the soul, least wise not mine). Special effects aka Weta and co have spoiled us for what we see. We may not put in so much effort to see where a film is going when the plot is so layered. I found it hard to sustain watching the film again in its entirety but trying to look at it as a statement/observation of its time, French bourgeoisie society, it’s not a bad social commentary and captures the hedonistic seventies. But I quibble, enjoy the fertile and political mind (Bunel) behind this.

Tony Benn having a jolly good think about this film