After Simon of the Desert, a short personal film, Bunuel moved permanently went to work in France. Bunuel still lived in Mexico, but went back to France every few months to make a film. Here, Bunuel slowly became more avant-garde and unlearned much of his commercial narrative flair. This work is, in my opinion, his most daring, admirable and ambitious, and much of it has not been replicated since. All of Bunuel’s work from this period is preserved with high-quality prints, and is readily available, much of it published by the well-respected Criterion Collection.
Belle de Jour and Tristana, both starring Catherine Deneuve, stick with rather traditional narratives, not that is in any way a bad thing. Denueve plays similar characters- repressed young woman restricted by their men. in Belle De Jour, Denueve is a sexually repressed housewife, while in Tristana, she is essentially held captive by her uncle, Fernando Rey in a role similar to Viridiana’s domineering uncle. Both films return to Bunuel’s themes of repression, and Tristana in particular features several religiously charged images, such as the massive bell over Toledo, showing the showing the power of religion over all.
Bunuel’s late career is defined by a “trilogy” of absurd, abstract films he made in the late sixties and early seventies- The Milky Way, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and The Phantom of Liberty. All three have loose, sprawling narratives, and are only linked thematically. The Milky Way deals exclusively with religion, showing Bunuel’s issue with the organization, not the belief in Christ or in Christ’s teaching.
The Milky Way follows two pilgrims on the Way of St. James, making their way to see a shrine (The Way of St. James was the original title of the bright strip of stars in the sky, and thus the film’s title). The two come across various oddities, including blind fortune tellers, odd banquets, and executions. The two seem to traverse through time and space, meeting figures dressed in all kinds of garb, from modern suits, to fancy cloaks, to simple sheets like Romans. The film ends with a powerful scene, showing Christ, who we see throughout the film as a real human, laughing and such, heal two blind men and ignore their requests to have their first sights explained to them while he states that his mission on earth is to tear humanity apart with his beliefs. The healed blind men follow Christ with their walking sticks, unable to cross a ditch without feeling across it. Although they now have the power of sight, they can’t see the world better at all, which is Bunuel’s opinion on religious enlightenment.
Discreet Charm broadened its attack, mocking the upper society’s ambitions and fears, still laying into Christianity, with the powerful character of the vengeful priest, forgiving his parents’ killer on the guy’s deathbed moments before blowing his head off. The plot travels through dreams, stories, and dreams within dreams, focusing on a group of upper class friends who want to dine together, but simply cannot. The film is widely regarded as Bunuel’s masterpiece, winning him the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, and finally thrusting him into the public forefront. Sure, Viridiana, Exterminating Angel and Belle de Jour were well known, but Discreet Charm surpasses them all in name recognition.
Bunuel then returned to some good ol’ fashioned surrealism with the ever-bizarre and free Phantom of the Liberty, a sprawling series of loosely connected vignettes, some basically operating as ideas Bunuel found interesting or humorous, jotted down, and then filmed. He explores all of his favorite themes in depth, with a young man sleeping with his Aunt, priests drinking and gambling but repelled by sex, and a young girl reported missing despite being in the same room as her parents and the police, and all adults directly addressing her. Perhaps the funniest and strangest image is when Bunuel returns to dining, having a group of upper-class friends sit around the table on toilets, talking only about deification, while the mere mention of food is repulsive. One man pulls up his pants, excuses himself, and asks the maid quietly where the dining room is. He talk himself in a small stall and opens a cabinet, revealing a chicken dinner he cuts into. The vignette satirizes the criteria of social selection- easily we can see how eating could be considered gross, and we could be trained to accept pooping as normal. In fact, pooping is more natural than easting, and much more universal.
Bunuel’s final film, That Obscure Object of Desire, returns to a more traditional narrative but with a good amount of experimentation. The film tells the story of an older man, Fernando Rey, who falls madly in love with a young woman, played by two different actresses in alternating scenes. One actress is kind to our hero, while the other one openly taunts him and denies him of sex actively. The film is undercut with a deeply paranoid plot of terrorist takeover, showing the certain triviality of Rey’s quest.
Four years after Obscure Object, Bunuel died at age eighty-three. Although I wouldn’t say he was forgotten, many of his films have been overlooked and are essentially unavailable in America. Tristana was just made available this year, while only three films- Obscure Object, Tristana, and Belle de Jour are available on Blu-Ray in America (although one can easily get an import of Discreet Charm and L’Age D’or on the high definition disc). Besides that, many of his later films are on DVD, while many of his Mexican films, I’d even say the bulk, are not even on a major DVD. Many exist on terrible prints, and some are not even available on a torrent website. Bunuel certainly gets respect, but certainly demands more. I urge that some company work on getting this master’s prints and finally doing them justice. I know there are financial factors at play, but I’m sure that consumers exist, and if a company like Criterion picks up the rights, the market will be created with Criterion’s tendency to build up buzz for under-appreciated titled, like what it did with the Pierre Etiax collection earlier this year. Perhaps Bunuel’s “lesser” works can be collected in an eclipse set, while many could be stand-alone releases.
Bunuel still hold audiences to this day. His style is very straight-forward and unpretentious, nearly invisible at times but always working and shocking audiences with powerful themes and imagery. Thirty Years after his death, Bunuel is still remembered fondly and loved by many, and hopefully major interest in him will grow in the upcoming years.
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