The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (French: Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie) is a 1972 surrealist film directed by Luis Buñuel and written by Jean-Claude Carrière in collaboration with the director. The film was made in France and is mainly in French, some dialogue is in Spanish.
The film concerns a group of upper class people attempting — despite continual interruptions — to dine together. The film received the 1972 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Plot
The film consists of several thematically linked scenes: five gatherings of a group of bourgeois friends, and the four dreams of different characters. The beginning of the film focuses on the gatherings, while the latter part focuses on the dreams, but both types of scenes are intertwined. There are also scenes involving other characters, such as two involving a Latin American female terrorist from the fictitious Republic of Miranda. The film's world is not logical: the bizarre events are accepted by the characters, even if they are impossible or contradictory.
The film begins with a bourgeois couple, the Thévenots (Frankeur and Seyrig), accompanying M. Thévenot's colleague Rafael Acosta (Rey) and Mme. Thévenot's sister Florence (Ogier), to the house of the Sénéchals, the hosts of a dinner party. Once they arrive, Alice Sénéchal (Audran) is surprised to see them and explains that she expected them the following evening and has no dinner prepared. The would-be guests invite Mme Sénéchal to join them for dinner at a nearby inn. Finally arriving at the inn, the party find it locked. They knock and are invited in, despite the waitress' seeming reluctance and an ominous mention of "new management". Inside, there are no diners (despite disconcertingly cheap prices) and the sound of wailing voices from an adjoining room. It is learned that the manager died a few hours earlier and his former employees are holding vigil over his corpse, awaiting the coroner. The party hurriedly leave.
Two days later, the bourgeois friends attempt to have lunch at the Sénéchals, but he (Cassel) and his wife escape to the garden to have sex instead of joining them. One of the bourgeois friends takes this as a sign that one of them called the police (fearing the discovery of his cocaine trafficking) and were leaving because they didn't want a fuss. The party leaves again.
At another, they visit a tea house, which turns out to have run out of all beverages - tea, coffee, milk, and herbal tea, although it finally turns out that they do have water. While they are waiting, a soldier randomly tells them about his childhood, and about how after the death of his mother, he was educated by his cold-hearted father. The soldier's mother (as a ghost) informs him that the man is not his real father, but in fact, killed the soldier's father during a duel over his mother's favor. Following his ghost mother's request, the soldier poisons and kills the ruthless culprit.
A priest attempts to work for the couple who had (previously) sneaked off to their garden to make love owing to their unbearable stuffed-shirt guests. He explains to them about his childhood - about how his parents were murdered by arsenic poisoning, and the culprit was never apprehended. Later on in the film, he goes to bless a dying man, but when it turns out that the man was the gardener who killed the priest's parents, he first blesses him, then fires the shotgun, killing the man.
Various other aborted dinners ensue, with interruptions including the arrival of an army of soldiers in the dining room, or the revelation that the general's dining room is in fact a stage set in a theatrical performance, during a dream sequence.
A recurring scene throughout the film of which the six people are walking silently on a road toward a mysterious destination is set in the last sequence.
Principal cast
See also
Further reading
- Kinder, Marsha (1999). Luis Buñuel's the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521568315.
External links
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