miguel-durand

1918, in the Dada Manifesto we read "... we are not free and we ask for freedom". Then, Surrealism developed from Dadaism and Andre Breton wrote the Surrealism Manifesto : "...Pure psychic automation by which it is intended to express either verbally, in writing, the true function of thought, though dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside all aesthetic or more preoccupations". L. Bunuel was part of Surrealism and did work with surrealists artists like Salvador Dali. Both Dadaism and Surrealism were anti-bourgeois, libertarian, anticlerical, and provocateurs movements. L. Bunuel in The Phantom of liberty is truly faithful to this background. His aim being to launch the ultimate attack on religion, bourgeois tradition, and exploring the human condition vis a vis freedom. "Down with liberty" is a critical view on the possibility of the human being liberation from himself or as Henri Laborit would say ... as long as the Human Specie won't recognize that the domination from humans on humans, individually and/or collectively, is the main motor of life on the planet earth and trying to use this fact for the benefit, somehow positively, of the specie we won't advance one step from auto-repression, slavery, and obscurantism which is precisely the bourgeois world denounced by Bunuel.

From the very beginning when the husband said "I am tired of symmetry" and "The sea is not longer the sea". We are aware of a tired European man facing nihilism and bourgeois boredom. Then L. Bunuel sets the tone with mockery and makes fun of bourgeois symbolic icons (ex., The Arch of Triumph , Sacre Coeur Church, both in Paris, etc.). Then follows a series of scenes, some surrealists, where Bunuel studies reactions and situations. Let's concentrate in the killer Poet; the missing girl; and the police repression at the end of the film. Andre Breton once said that the surrealist act par excellence was to take a gun, go outside, and kill everyone at sight on the spot. This might be the source of this scene. The serial killer poet is sentence to death according to the Civil Code, and then he can walk free to the outside world. The outside world is death, the bourgeois world is death, life was and is being converted to death. This is why A. Rimbaud wanted to "changer la vie" and Marx "to transform the world". With the missing girl episode, Bunuel is teaching us that the Bourgeoisie represented by school authority, family, police, etc. fails to understand the actual world, is enraptured in its own vision and reveries (one dimensional thought, order, traditions, making profits, hierarchy, etc.). The bourgeoisie can look but cannot see (see relativity of laws discussion on Margaret Mead episode).

The film closed with rather a pessimistic vision... We all are the animals in the zoo, living in cages, enslaved, and screaming, shouting, all day long : "Down with liberty" (As the Spaniards did when French troops with Napoleon at the head did try to expand ideals of Freedom and Fraterny in Europe after the French Revolution). Revolution that did fail as the Russian Revolution... L. Bunuel once said "I remained sympathetic to the communist party until the end of the 1950s, when I finally had to confront my revulsion. Fanaticism of any kind had always repelled me, and Marxism was no exception; it was like any other religion that claims to have found the truth (...) Everything could be explained, they said, by socio-economics mechanism, a notion that seemed perfectly derisory to me. A doctrine like that leaves out at least half of the human being".

The idea of Liberty did fail or how to reach Liberty, Fraternity..., ... because... , somehow, ... "we are not free but we ask for freedom".

This film is one of Ruiz's greatest. Once, I read, with his film Ruiz pay tribute to Jean Luc Godard's Le Mepris. So then, I asked Ruiz (Santiago, 2005)... You were influenced by this Godard's film... ? - which film ? - ... This film Le Mepris with Jack Palance and... your film features same kind of music (Georges Delerue's music is an actor in Le Mepris, and as far as I can feel Jorge Arriagada composed great music for Ruiz's film, but does not top Delerue's), (...) close atmosphere, and two languages... - more than two languages ! - (answered Ruiz). Yes, you are right (...), and then Ruiz goes : "Probably I took it from there". So, as far as art form and influence is concerned we are aware where inspiration is coming from. This being said, to fully understand visions, dreams, ideas we must try to relate to Ruiz background. Ruiz spent half his life in Chile, and the other half in France. Then he is American and European, extremely cultivated man, with socialist roots, being able to share a sophisticated humor. We may say this film is "Realismo Magico" at his best (allow me to describe it as 'dreaming in real time'...). Garcia Marquez, the Nobel Prize winner, developed the style in that great novel "Hundred years of Solitude", where he set the parameters to study America's fate and the Human Condition. All this; is, somewhere, in Ruiz mind. Therefore, in 1980-1982, nothing better than starting a film assuming hilariously that the Soviet Union expanded so much that finally it included Holland, nice joke, very Ruiz, but History proved he was wrong. The film stars here with comrades meeting in Holland. An anthropologist is introduced by his wife to this Chilean communist millionaire, a contradiction in terms, who invited them to his property in Patagonia where are living the two last Yachanes Indians, their ancestors decimated by colonialism and imperialism, the point where the film meet actual History. This is the reason why Ruiz was right, the film was shot in six different languages : English, French, German, Dutch, and the interesting Indian language. In Patagonia Ruiz counterpoints European culture with American culture, in particular with Indian culture, this is the climax of the film where contradictions, dreams, visions, frustrations, prejudices, barbarism, individualism, imperialism are exposed and denounced. The anthropologist left in confusion just to return and realized his wife, Eva (!) is in a relationship with Narcisso, the millionaire; while Adam and Eden (!), wasting not even a minute, have read Hegel; learned French and German; listened Mozart and Beethoven, and being able to develop theories about them all (!) becoming even opinionated... "Hegel was a nice guy", "I do not like Mozart, he was a reactionary, I like Beethoven", this scene is just truly amazing and brilliant, the sarcasms and message is : Europe is everything, we are nothing. Now, everything you have in mind, regardless of roots, etc. ; what it counts, is it coming from Europe. Ruiz takes distance, he smiles (he is ironic), the film is over, the idea is plain, self-evident... "No matter what, Chile will always be juice", said Ruiz in an interview. Culturally and linguistically, what is valid for Chile is valid for America as a whole, and Europe still is, somehow, far away, distant, rather cold, nihilist, attractive and one day, who knows, even Socialism will prevail over there... 9/10

This is my first comment, and I am writing this review out of frustration reading such low ratings for this film by Jean Aurel. I have seen this film many times..., BB is so beautiful, but this is only the premium, the surplus value. Now, why this a good film ?... because the subject is well treated, with finesse. The main character, the writer, with his voice sometimes in off, sometimes dictating to his secretary (BB) explains his visions on women, relationships, broken relationships, freedom, writing, confusion, free love, man-woman behavior, marriage, man poetry with love and feelings, etc. Jean Aurel knows how to go deeper but stay human, fragile; and allow us to enjoy very good scenes, (it comes to mind, his girlfriend posing for pictures with this perfect wild jazz drumming. Superbe). No dull performances or out context. By the way, "Il a y deux femmes en vous"... It works all the time. I wonder if this film inspired L'homme qui aimait les femmes" by F. Truffaut. It seems to me Truffaut is paying tribute to Jean Aurel's great film. 8/10