The Exterminating Angel

If you want an introduction into the anarchic, surrealistic, bourgeois-baiting world of Luis Bunuel 'The Exterminating Angel' is the best place to start. The initial premise is simple, albeit puzzling - the guests at a dinner party mysteriously find themselves unable to leave their hosts house at the end of the evening. There's no logical reason why, they just can't. They are confused at first, but as the days go by and the food starts to run out, they become increasingly more desperate and turn on each other. Bunuel makes the most of the idea and creates a complex, multi-layered movie, packed with fascinating small details, intriguing dialogue and surprising situations, most of which is left up to the viewer to "explain". Bunuel is one of those directors, like David Lynch, Russ Meyer or Coffin Joe, that viewers either "get" or they don't. His vision is original and uncompromised and not for everyone. Me, I think he made some of the greatest movies of all time, especially his fertile 1960s period which included some of his very best work like 'Belle De Jour' and yes, 'The Exterminating Angel'.

a satire. a bitter portrait of a too old reality. a parable. or only a story by Bunuel. like each of his films, a challenge. or more than one of challenges. because it represents more than a social critic. the motif - it is the story of contemporary realities more than one of the "60's. the isolation. the captivity, the need to return to old formulas for become, again, part of normal are traits of a film with virtue of warning. and this could be the cause for it remains, long time after you see, present in memory. as a dark picture of a world defined by fear and instinct.

I am not going to go into much specifics except to say that this is one of the darkest and most disturbing films I have seen. I would certainly in that way rank it alongside David Lynch's "Eraserhead," Werner Herzog's "Even Dwarfs Started Small," Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," and more recently Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch Drunk Love." Each of these films is funny in a way, some hilariously, all subversively. I also must say, not to the detriment of the film necessarily, that this is one of the most irritating films I've seen. Bunuel truly gets under the skin of what gets under our skin: inane quirks, selfish boors, groupthinkers. The most disturbing imagery in the film suggests christian parallels with many of the guests praying or vowing to do good works if released, a butler that studied with jesuits and a final service in a church, as well as several lambs (often representations, as in Blake, of Jesus). Possible also are references to Passover's "exterminating" angel of death, as a brick thrown through a window is at first attributed "some passing Jew." I will not presume to interpret these, and I probably could not do so convincingly if I tried, and, much like with Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive, I don't really want them interpreted for me. This is the wonder of Bunuel. "Cinema is anarchistic" is a probable misquote of him, but from the time of his last film no filmmakers except those above have been able to capture the feeling while watching a film that ANYTHING can happen, and very quickly, and how very frightening that is. The other reason I write is that the VHS of this film is ATROCIOUS. The best part is where one guest babbles on for about 10 seconds, none of which is shown in the subtitles AT ALL. Most of them are difficult to read as they are against a white background, the quality is true crap. "Diary of a Chambermaid" is a fine film but this is the one that truly needs to be seen as it was intended. >

I saw this film for the first time on TCM this week. It was really thought provoking. What fascinated me was that there were people in the room who had all sorts of skills to figure out the problem and become free, but did not. Another intriguing aspect was that nothing: marriage, love, death, children, jobs, or intelligence and logic was enough to solve the problem. The solution comes in a very interesting way and the least likely person. I hope you will watch and check it out. There was also a strong parallel between the catholic church and the people trapped in the room. I wondered if they were illustrating the socialist belief that 'religion is the opiate of the people.' The sheep were not eaten by the bear and all of these symbols were politically interesting. I have never written a review before and I hope I have not included any spoiler but this is a movie I would love to discuss over coffee: it is intelligent, mesmerizing, and a lesson for our time.

Señor Edmundo Nóbile, a wealthy aristocrat, is hosting a formal dinner party for his friends at his luxurious mansion. At the end of the party Nóbile, his wife, their guests and his butler (the other servants have already left) find themselves unable to leave the dining-room, so settle down to sleep on couches and the floor. The following morning they are still in the same inexplicable predicament. The doors are not locked but they are still unable to leave, as if some mysterious force field or psychological barrier were preventing them from doing so. They remain in the house in this state for several days, even though they run out of food and can only obtain water by breaking open a wall to get access to a water pipe. Even when one guest is taken ill, and later dies, they still cannot break out. The police and a crowd of people gather outside the house, but they are no more able to enter than those inside are to get out.

Luis Buñuel was one of the founders of cinematic surrealism, dating back to "Un Chien Andalou", his early collaboration with Salvador Dali, and "The Exterminating Angel" is often described as "surrealist". The surrealism starts with the title, which has nothing to do with anything we see on screen. Buñuel, who acted as both writer and director, explains the strange plight of the guests, either in rational or in supernatural terms. Nor does he provide us with any interpretation of the film's symbolism, leaving such matters for his viewers to interpret for themselves.

That, of course, has not prevented the critics coming up with their own interpretations, and there would not be room to deal with all of them in this review, although Buñuel clearly intended an element of satire at the expense of the upper classes. (It is no accident that the host of the party has the surname "Nóbile"). A popular interpretation put forward by, among others, Roger Ebert is that the film is an allegory of the Spanish Civil War and of the Francoist regime to which it led. (Buñuel himself was, of course, an opponent of Francoism and produced this film in exile in Mexico). Many of Spain's aristocracy and wealthy classes initially supported Franco, and many of them may well have hosted parties like the one we see here to celebrate his victory, but by the early sixties his brutal dictatorship had lasted for a quarter of a century and many Spaniards, even among those who had once supported him, were starting to feel trapped. A flock of sheep plays a part in the story, and these may represent those ordinary Spaniards who supported the Nationalist side in the Civil War, "sheep" being a commonplace metaphor for people who are stupid and easily led. They end up being eaten by the trapped aristocrats.

"The Exterminating Angel" is a film which tends to divide opinion, with some hailing it as a masterpiece and others finding it incomprehensible. I myself tend towards the second position, although Buñuel would probably have said that he never intended it to be "comprehensible" in the sense of having a simple, easily understandable meaning. He probably intended it to be just what it is, an elegant but ultimately insoluble puzzle with no more "meaning" than a Dali painting. 6/10