Cheap The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie - Criterion Collection (DVD) (Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig) (Luis Buñuel) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie - Criterion Collection

In the late 20's, Luis Bunuel was an active member of the surrealist movement and gave to the cinema a unique masterpiece, UN CHIEN ANDALOU, whose screenplay had been written by Salvador Dali. For nearly 50 years, the cinematographic world of Luis Bunuel has been filled with the anarchic ideas of this movement and, if you don't know any of his movies, you are going to be a little bit puzzled by THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE. Before entering this world, you must learn to forget to ask " why ". Why are these people wandering through french landscapes ? Why does this bishop want so badly to become a gardener ? Why does this soldier have the urge to confess the dream he had the night before ? and so on. There are no particular meanings in these actions, they are just part of the world of one of the best film directors of the XXth century.

A healthy DVD.

Excellent surrealism on film
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, under its original title "Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie" remains one of the most famous surrealist films. Directed by Luis Buñuel, the md credited with creating surrealsim on film does an excellent job in this film.

The story is about six high class people trying to have a meal together, each time they do so, they are interrupted one way or another. Each interruption becomes increasingly more unusual and humorous. The film has excellent acting and humor with great scenery of the French countryside.

This film also won an Academy Award® for best Foreign language film. It is wel deserving of the award though the competition that year was not very difficult. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay and lost to "The Candidate"

The Criterion DVD has some great special features also. There is a theatrical trailer and two seperate biographies on Luis Buñuel. Disc 1 contains the film, the theatrical trailer, and a poorly pre-subtitled biography on Buñuel. This documentary is titled, "El náufrago de la calle de Providencia" or "The castaway on Providence Street" which originally aired on television in 1970 in Mexico It is 24 minutes in length.

Disc two contains an all new documentary "A propósito de Buñuel" or "Speaking of Buñuel". This documentary is 98 minutes long and is a retrospective on Buñuel's life intercut with footage of his movies and interviews with family and friends Buñuel. The subtitles on this documentary are a lot better. This documentary contains scenes that may not be suitable for children and young teens.

Masterful tales of charm and horror
Bunuel's handling of narrative is nothing short of masterful in this film. The work's structure is akin to a collection of interconnected short stories - stories that have important ties with Poe's more satirical writings. Each tale offers either a variation on one or more of the film's main characters, or an episode linked in one way or another to the events that surround it. These tales are interesting enough when considered individually, but they gain further levels of meaning if we read them in parallel with the whole work. The film is at once literary and extremely cinematic: the thematic, 'writerly' depth is enhanced by remarkable visual coherence; the cool, precise style hides constant subversion and images range from the brutally shocking to the lyrical. It is customary but somewhat erroneous to say that this work goes back-and-forth between dreams and 'reality' - Bunuel blurs the line between them until differenciation becomes close to impossible. This is a major achievement from one of the supreme masters of the fantastic art.