Cet obscur objet du désir (1977)

Director:

Luis Buñuel

Writers:

Luis Buñuel (scenario)
Jean-Claude Carrière (collaboration)

Release Date:

8 October 1977 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Plot:

Just after boarding a train, much to the surprise of his fellow passengers, a man pours a bucket of water over a young girl on the platform...

Plot Keywords:

Surrealism | Absurdism | Spain | Absurd Humor | Satire

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 5 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Fernando Rey	...	Mathieu
Carole Bouquet	...	Conchita
Ángela Molina	...	Conchita (as Angela Molina)
Julien Bertheau	...	Judge
André Weber	...	Valet (as Andre Weber)
Milena Vukotic	...	Woman in train
María Asquerino
Ellen Bahl	...	Manolita
Valerie Blanco		(as Valérie Blanco)
Auguste Carrière	...	La femme qui reprise dans la vitrine (as Auguste Carriere)
Jacques Debary	...	Un voyageur
Antonio Duque
André Lacombe
Lita Lluch-Peiro
Annie Monange

Also Known As:

Ese oscuro objeto del deseo (Spain)
That Obscure Object of Desire (USA)

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

France | Spain

Language:

French | Spanish

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Ireland:15 | West Germany:12 (re-rating) | West Germany:16 (original rating) | Argentina:18 | Chile:18 | Finland:K-16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Sweden:15 | USA:R | UK:15 | UK:X (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Giralda Tower, Sevilla, Andalucía, Spain

Company:

Greenwich Film Productions

Trivia:

Maria Schneider, frequently nude in Ultimo tango a Parigi (1972) (Last Tango in Paris), walked off the film in protest at the amount of nude scenes.

Quotes:

Mathieu: My Conchita...

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Buñuel y la mesa del rey Salomón (2001)

Soundtrack:

La Walkyrie

The discreet charm of the phantom of Tristana.

Pierre Louys 's novel had already transferred thrice to the screen:by Jacques de Baroncelli in 1928,Von Sternberg in 1935 ( "Devil is a woman" starring Marlene Dietrich) and finally Julien Duvivier (1958,starring Brigitte Bardot).

When Bunuel takes a book ,he always makes it his very own :see for instance what he did with "Robinson Crusoe" !So his permanent features are present here even if personally ,I think that "cet obscur..." is the weakest of his latter days works.But even when Bunuel is not at his best,he's better than most of the rest .

Like the bourgeois in "discreet charm of the bourgeoisie" are searching for a good meal which ,in spite of their dough,they can never get,Rey is on fire:he covets a woman ,he wants to have sex with her but something happens every time he is about to assuage his passion.Besides,in order to puzzle his pitiful hero,Bunuel uses two different actresses:Carole Bouquet's character belongs to the perverse young girls with a Madonna face ,recalling Deneuve's Tristana or Severine ("Belle de jour" )whereas Angela Molina is the sensuous bitchy woman (Djin (Simone Signoret)in "la mort en ce jardin" ;Pedro's mother in "los olvidados").

Religion had always been Bunuel's bête noire :here he works ,so to speak,on a large scale(the terrorists kill in the name of the Jesus baby !) and on a smaller one (Conchita's mother ,a military man's(!) widow, goes to church every day but she is not afraid of making a prostitute of her daughter .)

The strange gathering on the train recalls that scene in "phantom of liberty "where the guests at the inn meet in a room in the middle of the night to chat,which Milena Vukotic's presence reinforces (she's featured in the two movies).

And ,last by not least,Bunuel's final opus includes a tribute to Lumière's "l'arroseur arrosé" (1895).Quoting the pioneers of cinema,what a wonderful way to say goodbye!