Another gorgeous day. Here you see my helper, who valiantly rolled up her jeans and waded out in the water, in a mostly vain attempt to get Bogey to try to swim. Meanwhile, Spikey was literally dog paddling back and forth, oblivious to everything else.

I love the look on her face as Bogey is shaking off what seems like gallons of water.

This attracted a crowd of at least 20 people who sat on the rocks or stood along the promenade, enjoying the show, commenting loudly each time she’d drag him out yet again, he’d stand there for a minute or two and then scamper back up the steps.
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Went to Jaspa’s for dinner. Momentarily forgetting how large their portions are, even though I was alone I ordered both a starter and a full salad. By the time I finished the starter, I was full. Even though I was too embarrassed to ask, the waiter volunteered to check in the kitchen. They hadn’t put the salad together yet, so no problem to cancel. I managed to find a little room for some dessert though.
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Back home, time for a movie.

One of my favorite directors is the surrealist Luis Bunuel. Even though I’ve seen far from his total oeuvre, those films that I have seen have resonated with me deeply. Right up until his last film, That Obscure Object of Desire, made when he was 77 years old, he was still surreal, humorous, political, happy to fuck with the world as much as he was when he made his first film, Un Chien Andalou at the age of 29, collaborating with Salvador Dali. Criterion Collection, the platinum standard of DVDs, has just released two more of his films and today I watched Exterminating Angel.

Made in Mexico in 1962, this film has a very simple plot. “The guests at an upper class dinner party find themselves unable to leave.” That’s the synopsis on IMDB.

After a night at the opera, a group of 20 people go to an opulent mansion for a late dinner party. Before they arrive, the servants all feel impelled to flee, without knowing why. After dinner, the guests move over to the living room, and are then unable to leave the room.

Why can’t they leave? There is no storm or revolution outside, the doors are not locked, there is no one in the house holding them hostage. But every time they go near the entrance, they turn back.

Days pass. They break through the wall to get at a pipe for water. Sheep wander into the living room and a cello is destroyed (Bunuel was having a feud with Pablo Casals) to provide firewood. (Sheep in the living room? There’s also a bear. Don’t ask.) Meanwhile, the families and the police gather outside the house. It’s not locked but they can’t seem to cross the threshold and go inside.

That’s your basic plot. As you can imagine, the rules of genteel society break down, and the break down brings both comedy and death. But this is no Lord of the Flies. If I was to compare it anything else, I’d say it’s a precursor to one of Bunuel’s true masterpieces, Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

Try to figure it out? It’s open to multiple interpretations. One of the stars, Silvia Pinal, interviewed in 2006 (one of the bonus features on the second disc) says that more than 40 years later, she still can’t figure the movie out. Why do the guests enter the house twice? Why not, was Bunuel’s reply, some days you bath twice, why not enter a house twice? She’s not concerned, it’s Don Luis, that’s all she needs to know – and all you need to know too.

The accompanying booklet also has a great interview with Bunuel. It both explains and further mystifies the film. I love the bit in the interview where Bunuel says the people had to be upper class, that if he’d set this in a working class home, they would have been able to figure a way out sooner.

Bunuel wasn’t happy with the film. Most of all, looking back he thinks he didn’t take the concept far enough, he should have let things devolve into cannabalism. He didn’t want to make it in Mexico, he wanted to make it in England, where he felt that type of bourgeoisie existed. Mexican actors weren’t up to the roles, the proper props couldn’t be found, his list of complaints goes on. But this was the only place where he could get the money and have complete artistic control.

There are some interesting reviews of the film on the net, well worth taking a look at.

Roger Ebert’s reviewed the film when it originally opened in the US and said, “It is impossible to say what this film means,” but he gave it four stars. He thought this might be Bunuel’s final film (it wasn’t, there were 8 more to come, 5 of them even better than this one).

Ebert reviews the film again 30 years later, as part of his “Great Movies” series. In this review he sees it as a social satire on Franco’s Spain. I’m not so sure.

Bosley Crowther, the grand old man of NY Times film reviews, had a negative take on the film. “… my feeling is that his canvas is too narrow and his social comment too plain to keep our interest fixed upon his people and their barren stewing for an hour and a half. This is a case in which the ennui and frustration, so purposely conveyed, creep into the patience of the audience as fast as they suffuse the characters.”

Casual movie watchers may feel the same way. They may long for a Bruce Willis to tear off his shirt, grab a gun and fight his way out. But this is not that kind of film.

If you’re new to Bunuel, don’t start with this, start with Discreet Charm. Or Belle Du Jour. I also have a fondness for Phantom of Liberty, which is truly subversive filmmaking. Or that last film, That Obscure Object of Desire, about an older man, desperately in love with a much younger woman, who is played by two different actresses who are swapped back and forth on screen randomly. Why? Why not?