The Exterminating Angel (1962)

The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave.

Director:

Luis Buñuel

Writers:

Luis Buñuel (screenplay by), Luis Alcoriza (story by)

Stars:

Silvia Pinal, Jacqueline Andere, Enrique Rambal

4 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Silvia Pinal	...	Leticia 'La Valkiria'
Jacqueline Andere	...	Alicia de Roc
José Baviera	...	Leandro Gomez (as Jose Baviera)
Augusto Benedico	...	Carlos Conde
Luis Beristáin	...	Cristián Ugalde (as Luis Beristain)
Antonio Bravo	...	Sergio Russell
Claudio Brook	...	Julio
César del Campo	...	Alvaro (as Cesar Del Campo)
Rosa Elena Durgel	...	Silvia
Lucy Gallardo	...	Lucía de Nobile
Enrique García Álvarez	...	Alberto Roc (as Enrique Garcia Alvarez)
Ofelia Guilmáin	...	Juana Avila (as Ofelia Guilmain)
Nadia Haro Oliva	...	Ana Maynar
Tito Junco	...	Raúl
Xavier Loyá	...	Francisco Avila (as Xavier Loya)

Storyline

After a lavish dinner party, the guests find themselves mysteriously unable to leave the room... and over the next few days all the elaborate pretenses and facades that they've built up by virtue of their position in society collapse completely as they become reduced to living like animals...

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Plot Keywords:

black comedy | class differences | social satire | surrealism | comedy of manners | 

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Taglines:

Everyone had something to hide--lust, greed, perversion, vice, violence--but no one could escape the Exterminating Angel.

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Genres:

Drama | Fantasy

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Mexico

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

21 August 1967 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Exterminating Angel

Filming Locations:

Mexico

Company Credits

Production Co:

Barcino Films, Producciones Gustavo Alatriste, Gustavo Alatriste

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

An opera based on this film, with music by Thomas Adès and a libretto by Tom Cairns, premiered at the 2016 Salzburg Festival in Austria. It opened in London at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in April 2017, and was subsequently produced in October 2017 at New York's Metropolitan Opera. The production made Metropolitan Opera history by requiring one of its stars, soprano Audrey Luna, to sing the highest note ever performed at the Met: an A above high C.

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Goofs

After the butler trips in the dining room, the lady of the house follows him into the kitchen. While they speak the boom mic can clearly be seen at the bottom of the screen, extending out from under a table.

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Quotes

Julio, Mayordomo; Steward: The help becomes more impertinent each day.

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Alternate Versions

In the uncut print (featured on the Criterion DVD) the guests enter the mansion and go upstairs twice. Some versions omit the surrealistic second arrival.

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Connections

Referenced in Earth (1996)

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Soundtracks

Waltz in E minor
(uncredited)
Music by Frédéric Chopin

User Reviews

The Discreet Charm in México

I discovered surrealist cinema as an adult. Of course, there are such scenes and images in many films, but I saw the first complete surrealist movie as a grown up. It was "Belle de jour", a film by Luis Buñuel, whose work I knew since watching his "Robinson Crusoe" in my childhood. Buñuel had gone a long way since 1928's "Un chien andalou", made in France. He had gone into exile during the Spanish Civil War, first to the United States and finally to México, where he spent the rest of his life. But he made films in Europe now and then, and had regained his status as one of the masters of world cinema. Although he did not think much of his Mexican motion pictures, his masterpiece "El ángel exterminador" is my favorite of all his films. He once complained that Mexican actors were not able to convey the spirit of the "haute bourgeoisie", but what he did not take into consideration was that, if he made a film in México about the rich, he was dealing with something else, called "creole oligarchies." And in this sense, this farce of the 1960s' Latin American "filthy rich" is most accurate. Moreover, with his usual affectionate treatment of the bourgeois (something he rarely did with clergy, female characters, or street urchins), he created a most believable funny portrait of the Latino rich people, who do not know what is their origin, who they should "pay tribute to", or where they are headed, unlike their European ancestors. Here, a group of those characters, born in México, gather for dinner after an opera performance, but when the time comes to leave the house of the Nobiles they cannot leave the room where they reunited for gossiping after meal. There is no apparent reason they cannot leave, but there they stay for days, going back to a primitive state in which their dearest "discreet charm" (euphemism, the rule of the game, as in Renoir's 1939 film) vanishes. And when they are set free, and go to a church to thank the Lord... well, Buñuel sure knew how to make fun of them, with situations verging on the fantastic and funny lines of incoherent, silly or ridiculous dialogue. A wonderful movie, which is always fun to watch again, especially in a double bill with another gem, the last one Buñuel made in México: "Simón del desierto."