O Fantasma da Liberdade

Bunuel's most strict surrealist film since L'age Dor is an amalgamation of strange backwards ideas flowing into one another. The little girl sequence is brilliant, as is the 'pervert' in the park how shows little kids 'obscene' pictures of.....famous national landmarks. "Just disgusting", a child's parent comments. This is the kind of film where a group of celebut monks join a card game, only to find themselves in the midst of kinky couple's bondage fetish. A man who's just been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer is offered a cigarette by his doctor! And the piece de la resistance, families and friends defacating in public, only to leave the table to secretly cower in little private rooms where they can guiltily eat with no one watching. Inspiring to no end! This film made me go out and make my own surrealist video, even going to the trouble of shooting in the freezing cold and getting a severed pig's head for one scene. It's all for the sake of surrealist art!

There is no denying that "The Phantom of Liberty" is a flat out WEIRD movie filled with surrealist gags and head scratching visuals, but does that make it a good movie exactly? It depends on whom you ask, many film buffs are certainly huge fans of Bunuel's odd, quirky, and mindbending style while the casual viewer may simply dismiss his work as being pretentious nonsense disguised as "art". Personally, I side with the former view, and while watching "The Phantom of Liberty' I gleefully relished in Bunuel's bizarre glory. This certainly is not a film for those seeking a clear definable plot or a series of light, cliché jokes; instead, it is a wild ride through Bunuel's vast imagination. It is a series of comical scenes, much like Bunuel's previous work "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", rather than being a film with any real plot. Similarly to Linklater's "Slacker", the film just follows character after character once the camera seems to get bored with them and their comical vignette is done. Otherwise, however, this film is nothing like "Slacker" and, instead, mostly mirrors every gem of surrealist comedy one could think of. It sort of works as a culmination of everything Bunuel has made as he shows off his signature style, aware that he is approaching the finale of his career. Sense is thrown out of the window and is replaced with ostriches, toilet bowls, and architectural imagery that is perceived as being pornographic. Bunuel playfully mocks religion as always, while also breaking countless taboos, stuffing his film with just enough violence and sex to both shock and amuse (often at the same time).

What can one say after watching "The phantom of liberty"? if you want to make films of your own, you can only be jealous with the power of Buñuel at directing the most simple everyday situations with a surrealist twist without thinking twice and flicking an eye. his hatred of the bourgeoisie is evident here even much more in then in his masterpiece "The discreet charm...". and the reason is: in that film there was a plot, a reason, a context which within things were happening, and the viewer could relate to things that happened earlier in the film. but in this picture there is no line, not one story, but stories that don't even intertwine with one another. just a collection of fragments, some strange, some funny, some totally impossible.

The freedom that Bunuel takes upon himself is backened with a lot of responsibility. one has to be responsible and not losing the viewer. but this freedom is exactly the same that he had as an artist while making "Un chien andalou", or "Archibaldo de la cruz". it's just that this time there is an attack at yet another bourgeoisie item: order. stories claim order. so is the ruling class.

So Bunuel and Carriere decided to attack the order of storytelling itself. it's a very tricky business to do on film, but if you understand the way dream works, no problem. let's go straight ahead. and so much fun is promised.

Just like any other Bunuel film, there are no special effects, no overwhelming shots, no camera or editing tricks. just an attack, there is no other way calling this, on reality of the mind, of the eye and of order of things. it is only when you release yourself from social rules that are false, fake and immoral, you can become free again. only when you see your fellow man and his suffering, you can become moral. only when you cry against social injustice, you can justify the revolution of humanity against greed and the wars it inflicted us into. if you'll keep on crying "death to freedom", you are in danger of becoming one of them bourgeois guys. and it's so easy, my god...

One of Buñuel's greatest films. Scene after scene arguments are used as beautiful excuses to subvert reality and attack established and hypocritical institutions with acute humor and surrealist means. If you have a taste for surrealism and absurd humor (i.e. Monty Python, Marx Bros., etc.) this movie cannot be recommended enough.

One small correction: the sniper is not sentenced to death but to capital punishment which results in something altogether different from death (and far more sarcastic).

Although Bunuel was to make one more film,"cet obscur objet du désir" ,"phantom of liberty" would remain his testament,his last sigh ,to mention the title of his memoirs.

The key to the movie is the segment dealing with the naughty gendarmes,the sociology teacher and Margaret Mead's books.Law must not be taken for granted,it depends on where and when you live.Something which would seem unbearable to us is nothing but natural to other human beings.The whole movie walks this fine line,being built around this very concept.It is Bunuel's most accessible movie and it's completely mad,which is fine with me.Its construction is not unlike Max Ophuls's "la ronde" (1950) as a new character provides the connection between the segments.It's not really free-form ,in the sense of the nouvelle vague ,nothing Godardesque here and anyway,Bunuel possessed something Jean-Luc will never have:humor.And the screenplay displays care and respect for the audience.One should point out Jean-Claude Carrière's importance in Bunuel's last works in France.

In "discreet charm of the bourgeoisie" ,humor which was latent in the former works (the dogs in "Viridiana" ;the pineapple in "Nazarin" ) came to the fore."Phantom" is probably not as strong as the previous work:it's sometimes uneven and some segments (the old aunt and her nephew)drag on.But most of the times,it's a delight.Bunuel's usual targets ,the Church and the Army are both given a rough ride .But social conventions ,"normality" are too.

A bevy of great actors take us to a magical mystery tour (Bunuel's regret was that too many movies lack mystery) Here he focused on the secret of the passage of the night hours ,wherever the action takes place ,in Brialy's and Vitti's bedroom or the inn where the guests are weird to say the least (the scenes in the inn recall those of "la voie lactée,1969).And the ostrich in the couple's room ,we find it back at the zoo,for the finale,when repression rises.When we bury our head in the sand ,French people call it "ostrish politics"! Bunuel was a great man.Everything he did is crying to be watched.When the movie was released,probably upset by the huge commercial success ,some critics called it "Bunuel' s holiday homework".Time proved them wrong.In 2005,"phantom" is solid as a rock.