Post by klep on Jul 30, 2018 6:44:12 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for0 7/30: The Exterminating Angel
HANGOUT WEEK!
It's not hard to tell what message Luis Buñuel is trying to send in The Exterminating Angel. A group of bourgeoisie gather for the evening and find themselves trapped in a room. As time passes and resources dwindle, tensions rise and social niceties start to decay. It time basic human decency starts to be lost and violence becomes a very real risk. These hoity-toity rich people - despite their early judgemental attitudes towards the lower classes - become little better than beasts when put under strain.
So it's a blunt message but it's told in such an inventive and beautiful way, with a dry wit that chokes the laughs off in your throat. As the film starts, the Nobiles' servants are all adamant about getting out of the house, and it's not clear why they're so determined. The Nobiles are frustrated, but the remaining staff stay long enough to get through dinner. But as people start to leave, something strange happens. They keep being delayed or finding some reason to stay. Before long it's after 3AM and they're all bedding down in the salon. It's uncouth, but it doesn't strike anyone as a problem until the morning, when it dawns on them that they can't leave. There's no force field or captors holding them there, they just can't bring themselves to cross the threshold of the room.
Their isolation is complete (no one outside the house is able to enter); their claustrophobia near-total. There are only a couple closets and a drape that can be pulled to get any privacy, and those closets soon get taken up by the dead or by waste. The rest of them scrounge for anything edible, drinking water from a pipe in the wall and unable to bathe. While they had been sneaking digs at each other and at the lower classes that entire first evening, as their situation becomes more desperate their nastiness becomes ever more revealed.
Buñuel beautifully captures the growing desperation of his characters, watching them become more disheveled and downtrodden in time with their decaying morality. Multiple brilliant shots capture their hopelessness, framed in the entrance to the salon. He adds additional surrealist touches to increase the mystery of what's going on - namely a bear and two lambs the hostess had arranged for and the way Buñuel rewinds the film multiple times (Ebert joked that in arriving twice, the guests arrive so thoroughly they can never leave).
Eventually the torture ends. The servants show up outside as coincidentally and abruptly as they left, and the spell is broken. But as the guests attend a mass for the deceased, the priest discovers he doesn't yet want to leave after the service, and the parishioners just mill about near the door. Class, it seems, is not the only institution for which Buñuel has contempt.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 8/6: Broadcast News
JOURNALISM WEEK!
Some films are about the reporters who go out and do the hard work to find a story and get the facts, and others are about the people who read it to you on television. This is the latter. Join us next week as we take on James L. Brooks' brilliant Broadcast News. Hopefully there won't be too much flop sweat. Broadcast News is available for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 7/31: Sorry To Bother You
Boots Riley's social satire about a young black man who climbs the corporate ladder by virtue of his white voice concludes this podcast pairing. Join us Wednesday for a discussion and an essay. Sorry To Bother You may be in a theater near you!
HANGOUT WEEK!
It's not hard to tell what message Luis Buñuel is trying to send in The Exterminating Angel. A group of bourgeoisie gather for the evening and find themselves trapped in a room. As time passes and resources dwindle, tensions rise and social niceties start to decay. It time basic human decency starts to be lost and violence becomes a very real risk. These hoity-toity rich people - despite their early judgemental attitudes towards the lower classes - become little better than beasts when put under strain.
So it's a blunt message but it's told in such an inventive and beautiful way, with a dry wit that chokes the laughs off in your throat. As the film starts, the Nobiles' servants are all adamant about getting out of the house, and it's not clear why they're so determined. The Nobiles are frustrated, but the remaining staff stay long enough to get through dinner. But as people start to leave, something strange happens. They keep being delayed or finding some reason to stay. Before long it's after 3AM and they're all bedding down in the salon. It's uncouth, but it doesn't strike anyone as a problem until the morning, when it dawns on them that they can't leave. There's no force field or captors holding them there, they just can't bring themselves to cross the threshold of the room.
Their isolation is complete (no one outside the house is able to enter); their claustrophobia near-total. There are only a couple closets and a drape that can be pulled to get any privacy, and those closets soon get taken up by the dead or by waste. The rest of them scrounge for anything edible, drinking water from a pipe in the wall and unable to bathe. While they had been sneaking digs at each other and at the lower classes that entire first evening, as their situation becomes more desperate their nastiness becomes ever more revealed.
Buñuel beautifully captures the growing desperation of his characters, watching them become more disheveled and downtrodden in time with their decaying morality. Multiple brilliant shots capture their hopelessness, framed in the entrance to the salon. He adds additional surrealist touches to increase the mystery of what's going on - namely a bear and two lambs the hostess had arranged for and the way Buñuel rewinds the film multiple times (Ebert joked that in arriving twice, the guests arrive so thoroughly they can never leave).
Eventually the torture ends. The servants show up outside as coincidentally and abruptly as they left, and the spell is broken. But as the guests attend a mass for the deceased, the priest discovers he doesn't yet want to leave after the service, and the parishioners just mill about near the door. Class, it seems, is not the only institution for which Buñuel has contempt.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 8/6: Broadcast News
JOURNALISM WEEK!
Some films are about the reporters who go out and do the hard work to find a story and get the facts, and others are about the people who read it to you on television. This is the latter. Join us next week as we take on James L. Brooks' brilliant Broadcast News. Hopefully there won't be too much flop sweat. Broadcast News is available for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 7/31: Sorry To Bother You
Boots Riley's social satire about a young black man who climbs the corporate ladder by virtue of his white voice concludes this podcast pairing. Join us Wednesday for a discussion and an essay. Sorry To Bother You may be in a theater near you!