Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

La Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie is a celebrated film by a well-regarded surrealist auteur. Given that, and given my taste for such things, I went in with high hopes. But I rarely found it more than mildly amusing.

It's undeniably clever. Bunuel's dry humor sparkles, and his gentle social critique hits its marks more often than not. The penultimate shot of Fernando Rey with a slice of ham stuffed in his mouth is one of the funniest and most memorable cinematic images I've encountered in quite a while. And Delphine Seyrig breezes through her scenes with hilariously blithe detachment. But the parts don't quite add up to a greater whole.

The film reaches its peak about halfway through, once a pattern has been established (dinner parties will be attended, but dining will be teasingly withheld) and the central narrative has begun to digress and fragment. As the surreal intrudes upon the quotidian, a delicious sort of suspense sets in. Pity, then, that the last forty-five minutes squander this tension, retreating to tepid farce and a rather obvious critique of upper-crust social mores.

Someone on the film's board once quoted the director as saying, "the bourgeois moral is the immoral thing for me, that which should be combated; the moral founded in our unjust social institutions as the religion, the homeland, the family, the culture, in short, the so-called pillars of the society." Thematically, the film consists of variations on this familiar counter-cultural conceit, and such thinking was certainly voguish in the late 60s and early 70s. It's an interesting and potentially valid argument, but I found the film's handling of the idea superficial, even clichéd.

The same could be said, I suppose, of El Topo or Sweet Movie, but those films transcend glib adherence to fashionable ideologies and period style. I don't think La Charme Discret does that. Of course, it's more an urbane, low-key comedy of manners than a flaming art-bomb thrown through the window of middlebrow complacency, so perhaps the comparison is unfair. As a comedy, it is appealing, in a mild sort of way.

Finally, I was disappointed by the film's look. I understand that the bland stage-set dining rooms are a device, and a successful one. But surreal detours aside, there isn't much to look at. The camera placements and movements are almost ploddingly ordinary, and while they capture the events adequately, they don't do anything interesting with them.

I'm being unkind, of course, and terribly unfair. By stressing these complaints, I'm giving short shrift the wonderful performances and amusingly understated comic dialog. I'm overlooking the fabulously eerie dream sequences and Bunuel's masterful control of tone. I gave La Charme Discret a 7/10 because it IS charming, funny and somewhat intellectually intriguing. But I still came out of the experience feeling a bit let down...

The systematic analysis of this film would be in my opinion a gigantic task, since there are so many topics, stories and references intermingled in the chaotic way the surrealists are so fond of. I think the two main topics -sometimes in surrealism there is not even one- are dreams and transgression of social norms and traditions. The film is articulated on linked-up situations: five gatherings of a group of bourgeois friends and four stories, four dreams which are dreamt by different characters. The suppers are more common in the first part of the film, and the dreams on a second part, but they alternate with each other and with other episodes, like that of the terrorist girl. At the beginning things seem not to turn out good: right the first thing we see is the perplexity of the guests to M. Senechal house when they are told the supper was planned for the next day. 'But that is impossible', says Acosta, 'I couldn't have accepted, tomorrow I'm busy'. Contradiction with no explanation, right the same way as things happens in a dream, where we accept the reality of what we dream without explanations, even if it is impossible or contradictory with something else -dreams are the core of surrealism and of this film. This baffling beginning really impressed me. There is contradiction and kind of a difficulty to do things in every single detail in the next sequence: Mme and M Senechal are invited to dine out, but she has to change. The restaurant 'n'a pas l'air gai', and the door is locked. They knock and they are invited in. The owners have changed. There is no people and the prices are cheap. Everything is suspicious. And then the first punch of the story: the manager died that afternoon and the wake has been set in the dining room since the undertaker has not yet arrived. Of course, the bourgeois leave. This is the first reference to death, a constant theme either in surrealism, in dreams and in this film. It seems as if the whole film was a dream. Within the context things are logical and normal -or seem logical and normal- to the characters, and their reactions are 'contextually' logical too, but from the outside the stories in the film are as odd as any dream we can have. E.g., when Acosta shoots the terrorist girl from his window, or when the army appeared at M. Senechal's house, or even when the bishop tells M Senechal that he wants to be the family gardener. They are baffled, but they accept the things that happen, as we are baffled by or dreams but accept their logic when we are dreaming. Social transgression is based on a subtle but scorning parody of the bourgeois class and their customs and beliefs. The bourgeois are classy, and conceited: they show off their vain culinary knowledge every time they host a supper. M. Thevenot boasts that 'discreet charm' of the bourgeois when he subtly makes fun of the chauffeur: he does not know how to drink a Martini. Later on, Acosta cheats on Thevenot when he tells him that he has to show his wife the 'sursiks'. Thevenot does not know what that is, but he is an hypocrite not to say it. The bourgeois are also extremely fond of the lowest vices and they enjoy them gaily -I do not think, on the other side, that Buñuel is condemning them, but the hypocritical attitude of the bourgeoisie. Drug trafficking and consumption, lust, alcohol. The commentaries about the younger girl vomiting and dirty nails and her ignorance (the complex of Euclides, she says at some point) point out -and laugh at- the hypocrisy in the values of the middle-high classes. Also the Church and the Army are criticized. The Bishop, a main head of the Church, is humble -a extremely acid irony- but will mercilessly kill a poor man that will die anyway -that adds to the cruelty. The Bishop is also ignorant: he does not know where the Republic of Miranda is. The soldiers and officers smoke marihuana and praise it, they even are connoisseurs! -'Mexico or Congo?', the general asks, referring to the origins of the product.. The dreams come over mainly in the second part of the film. Both the two first of them are dreamt by soldiers. I really enjoyed them. In the first one I see a little bit of a reference of the life in Spain on the times when Buñuel was a kid -I do not know Buñuel's early life in Spain, but I presume there could be some autobiography. The looks of the parents of the young soldier, their clothes and the strict, militarist attitude of the father made me think of the Spanish family life in the turn of the century XIX to XX. I also liked the second dream. The dark and blurry street and house and the background noise make a great dreamy scene. In this dream, the soldier meets a dead friend. Then another friend comes over, and makes him realize that it is impossible. Sometimes in real dreams this happens too. Something happens and then, with no explanation, we realize that is impossible. It also should be pointed out that these two dreams share two primal human topics: motherly feelings and fear to death. The topic of death is present in some other dreams: the general's, in which Acosta shoots him dead; or the dream about the ghost of the sergeant. Another primal fear is dealt with in Senechal's dream: shame. They are caught in a theater stage while they are having dinner -this is a recurrent dream that sometimes takes other forms: being naked in the middle of the street or lying on your bed wearing you pajamas in your classroom. I also found humor all over the film: funny situations such as the bishop offering himself as a gardener, or the straws in M. and Mme. Senechal hair. Acosta playing tricks on Thevenot, or the soldiers happily smoking joints and listening to a 'sympa' dream. But I do not know if Buñuel is trying to be funny or only to transgress. And that transgression is hilarious because it reveals the hypocrisy of society.

"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", a leisurely paced, incisive satire on social mores and class hypocrisy, opens with a group of friends arriving on the wrong day of a dinner engagement. this is only the begining of a succession of unexpected and unusual events to follow. The dinner party is the movie's main setting and it is there that reality and illusion often times blend imperceptibly together. The film is structured as a series of surreal sequences, which prompted esteemed film critic Pauline Kael to opine 'His(Director Louis Bunuel) indifference to dramatic logic is complete.' And how. Bunuel's narrative plays an elaborate game with the viewer through it's subconscious imagery and audacious use of time. His tendency to experiment with technique and form often times led to discovery and innovation. The cinema of Louis Bunuel invariably deals with the discrepancy between appearance and reality; decorum and desire. His world view was subversive and anarchistic. He was a cheerful pessimist, skeptical but not susceptible to Bergmanian despair. His skepticism extended to all of those he found playing too neat a social game. The filmmaker's career was one sustained assault on authoritarianism. Witness an indiscreet character in the film who claims: 'No one system can help the masses acquire refinement.' He believed man was, unconsciously, a slave to custom and aimed to shock viewers out of their unthinking acceptance of established values. "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"(An Academy Award winner in 1972 for Best Foreign Film) is a boldly inventive picture. Dozens of frames are filled with clever filmic devices: environmental noises increase inordinately during routine conversations; an ambiguous procession is inserted freely within the text. These cinematic ploys add intrigue to the already peculiar goings-on. The walk by the main group of characters along a country roadside is mysterious and compelling. The players are noticeably silent and contemplative. Is this an anxious dream? The afterlife? An insignificant flashback? Whichever, the recurring sequence underscores the obliqueness and cool obscurity of the film. One might not identify closely with the disenchanted Bunuelian sensibility or the unsentimental stance he takes, however one knows immediately and unmistakably that they are in the gifted hands of a film technician like a Godard or Kurosawa. A director in complete control of his medium. A highly personal filmmaker frequently referred as 'a poet of hallucination who follows the caprices of his fantastical imagination.' Someone whose fanciful paths of creation were invariably led by the irrational. "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", with it's arresting mixture of calculation and carelessness, remains a unique and influential movie. The acerbic films of Robert Altman and the perverse mischievousness of the Coen brothers films, to mention but a few, pay a large debt to the strange universe and unconventional perspective of Louis Bunuel. Film lovers uninitiated in surrealist cinema will find "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" an alluring and beguiling crash course.

A satire on everyone who's too big for their boots (or secretly wants 2 B), because they will not achieve the aims they pursuit and are ultimately doomed to be separated from their privileges when they wake up to reality. The story may also come across as remote parody on The Last Supper, but from the bourgeois point of view (who never really get their supper), in contrast with 'Viridiana' (1961, Buñuel), where the poor and disabled DO get their Last Supper. But I don't know much about the bible, so I'm probably wrong about that. It proves though that you don't have to be pious to appreciate Buñuel's films; in fact, you'd better NOT be.

The 'adventure' of the protagonists is a proverbial sinking ship, because they seem to know what they want, but never reach their goal, which is quite simple and basic (to eat), because they're so caught up in supposed etiquette. They have all kinds of knowledge about manners and gestures, but they cannot sit down and eat. That is actually a fairly clear message: 'look before you leap' or 'behold the priorities of life'.

What's more indiscrete: drinking a martini the wrong way, or selling cocaine abusing your position as an ambassador and fooling around in the garden while you're having friends over for diner? And are you ultimately discrete simply because nobody discovers your subversive or criminal actions? These guys just can't control their carnal and financial lust, while complaining: 'No system can give the masses the proper social graces. But you know me, I'm not a reactionary.' Blah.

Cinematographer Edmond Richard (Le Procès (1963, Welles), Fantôme de la liberté, Cet obscur objet du désir) exhibits his excellent collaboration with Buñuel's visions. Buñuel tried before to make it easier for audiences to understand the imagery by incorporating it in a dream sequence (e.g. Tristana, 1970), but he returns here (as in Belle de Jour, 1967) to the early days (1930) where the dream sequences were just put forward as if they were reality. You'll never know what is a dream and what is real. As always, there is no music here to guide you, apart from the ringing church bells. Just open up your ears and clean out your eyes and you'll not be disappointed.

One last remark: the cover of the video is definitely one of the most applicable and distinctive covers (Ferracci) ever made, as is the cover of 'Fantôme de la liberté' (an odd-faced statue of liberty with a limp torch) by Jean-Paul Commandeur and the cover of 'Cet obscur objet du désir'. Buñuel didn't worry about the surrealism in his own life. He seemed to live in harmony with all his contradictions and hypocrisy.

10 points out of 10 :-)

In Paris, the ambassador Don Rafael Acosta (Fernando Rey) of the South American country Miranda, who is also an smuggler of cocaine, comes to a dinner part in the house of Henri (Jean-Pierre Cassel) and Alice Sénéchal (Stephane Audran) with their common friends M. Thevenot (Paul Frankeur), his wife Simone Thévenot (Delphine Seyrig) and her sister Florence (Bulle Ogier) but on the day before the scheduled. Henri is not at home and they invite Alice to go with them to a restaurant close to her house, but an incident does not allow them to have meal together in the place. They reschedule another meal together many times, but problems occur in every occasion and they do not succeed in their intent.

"Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie" is one of the funniest movies of the master of the surrealism Luis Buñuel. This intellectual director was a great critic of the values of the Bourgeoisie Class and this movie is a witty joke, blurring the fears this class with reality and nightmare, and open to the most different interpretations. The empty, hypocrite and pointless existence of the Bourgeoisie Class is highlighted by the shallow interest of the characters in meal, sex, etiquette and money and their final journey to nowhere; or the behavior of the disloyal ambassador that betrays his friend having a love affair with his wife; smuggles cocaine using his diplomatic immunity; or shoots the toy of a terrorist in front of the Embassy of Miranda. Further, in 1972, the countries of South America lived under military dictatorship with many exiled people living in Paris, and the arrogant Don Rafael Acosta is hilarious denying the truth about his country. Buñuel does not spare the church in his satire, with the funny Monsignor Dufour trying to interfere in every subject without the appropriate knowledge. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Discreto Charme da Burguesia" ("The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie")