User reviews

That was what Luis Bunuel used to answer when asked about the meaning of one of his least accessible works.Much less linear than "Viridiana" -featuring the same actress Silvia Pinal-which precedes it,"El Angel exterminador" can be looked upon as an allegory.We find a lot of permanent features of the Bunuel canon in it though.

The fact that the guests cannot leave the luxury house will find an equivalent in "le charme discret de la bourgeoisie"(1972) when the five characters cannot have a good meal at the restaurant;the guests turning like lions in a cage echo to this strange picture of the five heroes of "charme discret" walking on an endless road.

This is the kind of movie that will have as many interpretations as there are users writing about it.And Bunuel would probably be the first to say that anyone is allowed to see his movie as he feels it in his soul -which is a word he would not certainly approve of though.

Another put-down of the bourgeoisie ,probably;As Charlie Chaplin would not have let an ice-cream fall on a poor woman's dress,Bunuel's wholesale massacre concerns the rich,the well-to-do.The house may be a metaphor for their world which they want to keep exactly as it is.But Bunuel soon scratches the varnish and after long hours,his powerful bourgeois are just men and rather hateful selfish cowards -the scene when they rush to get a glass of water.And as they cannot rely on themselves and on their pals,the only assistance can only come from above:so they promise God they will chant Te Deums, they will go to Lourdes and buy a washable rubber Virgin (sic).Surrealist pictures,which had been absent since "cela s'appelle l'aurore" (1955) come back for a while during one night,and they mainly deal with religion and heaven.The mystery of the night hours will come back in "le fantôme de la liberté" (1974)

The last pictures bring the missing link :the army ,shooting people (talking about a revolution?) ,as the bourgeois keep on singing(?) and praying(?)in the cathedral.

Recommended?Everything Bunuel did is crying to be watched.

I can't say that I'm a big fan of director Luis Buñuel. While I admire his visual flair - his movies often lack backbone, and this brings them down. The Exterminating Angel is the first Buñuel movie that I've really enjoyed. I enjoyed it because I never got the impression that the point of this film was simply to be weird. Buñuel has found a premise - basically, a satire on the behaviour of the upper class - and lampooned it brilliantly. The key to this movie is setting up the central plot, and the director does such a good job of it that after a while; we don't care that the film is based on an idea that makes no sense at all, and are just able to run with it. The film follows a bunch of guests at a dinner party. At the end of the party, none of them make any effort to go home and after a while it becomes apparent to the party that they physically cannot leave the room. We then watch as the upper class, people who are used to sipping champagne and smoking expensive cigars are reduced to surviving in the most basic ways. They have to hack through the wall to find a water pipe and even begin eating paper to quench their hunger…

The satire works because the acting is just so different to the way that the upper class usually conduct themselves - either on screen or otherwise. The structure of the social classes is clearly defined by Buñuel's film also. This is the sort of thing that would really scare the rich, while other social classes have other things to worry about. Before the nightmare begins, various people are commenting on the conduct of one of their own who has had slightly too much to drink. This wouldn't worry anyone who isn't 'high society', but the fact that these people do care about it shows the difference in values between the classes. Buñuel directs the film with almost a complete lack of emotion towards the central ensemble - and this stood out to me as it really allows the film to be funny. It's almost like the director is laughing at the situation that he's put his cast of characters into, which suggests that the Spanish director isn't the biggest fan of the upper classes. There's a million and one ways that this film could be interpreted, and that is what makes it great. If you don't like films that don't make sense; this probably won't do much for you. However, I think that this is one of those films that need to be experienced; and I definitely recommend it.

"The Exterminating Angel" is the ultimate COVID-19 pandemic movie.

A bunch of swells attend a dinner party. An offer made by the host to the guests to spend the night, an offer which everyone knows isn't supposed to be accepted, is, and, social codes being disrupted, calamity ensues. The guests become trapped together in the same room for four days, and their good manners and propriety gradually dissolve away until they're all acting like a bunch of savage lunatics.

Though made in the 1960s, "The Exterminating Angel," like all good films, is so astute about human nature that it feels as relevant now as it did then. The world seems full of a bunch of privileged people who have the luxury to go through life oblivious to the world around them. But then a pandemic hits, and they're freaking out about toilet paper.

I happened to watch this film a day or so after watching another Bunuel film, "Diary of a Chambermaid." Together, the two films serve as a withering denunciation of the middle class, whether it be in early 20th Century France, Spain of the 1960s, or the America of today.

Grade: A.

I saw this film for the first time on TCM this week. It was really thought provoking. What fascinated me was that there were people in the room who had all sorts of skills to figure out the problem and become free, but did not. Another intriguing aspect was that nothing: marriage, love, death, children, jobs, or intelligence and logic was enough to solve the problem. The solution comes in a very interesting way and the least likely person. I hope you will watch and check it out. There was also a strong parallel between the catholic church and the people trapped in the room. I wondered if they were illustrating the socialist belief that 'religion is the opiate of the people.' The sheep were not eaten by the bear and all of these symbols were politically interesting. I have never written a review before and I hope I have not included any spoiler but this is a movie I would love to discuss over coffee: it is intelligent, mesmerizing, and a lesson for our time.

I am not going to go into much specifics except to say that this is one of the darkest and most disturbing films I have seen. I would certainly in that way rank it alongside David Lynch's "Eraserhead," Werner Herzog's "Even Dwarfs Started Small," Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," and more recently Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch Drunk Love." Each of these films is funny in a way, some hilariously, all subversively. I also must say, not to the detriment of the film necessarily, that this is one of the most irritating films I've seen. Bunuel truly gets under the skin of what gets under our skin: inane quirks, selfish boors, groupthinkers. The most disturbing imagery in the film suggests christian parallels with many of the guests praying or vowing to do good works if released, a butler that studied with jesuits and a final service in a church, as well as several lambs (often representations, as in Blake, of Jesus). Possible also are references to Passover's "exterminating" angel of death, as a brick thrown through a window is at first attributed "some passing Jew." I will not presume to interpret these, and I probably could not do so convincingly if I tried, and, much like with Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive, I don't really want them interpreted for me. This is the wonder of Bunuel. "Cinema is anarchistic" is a probable misquote of him, but from the time of his last film no filmmakers except those above have been able to capture the feeling while watching a film that ANYTHING can happen, and very quickly, and how very frightening that is. The other reason I write is that the VHS of this film is ATROCIOUS. The best part is where one guest babbles on for about 10 seconds, none of which is shown in the subtitles AT ALL. Most of them are difficult to read as they are against a white background, the quality is true crap. "Diary of a Chambermaid" is a fine film but this is the one that truly needs to be seen as it was intended. >

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."

Señor Edmundo Nóbile, a wealthy aristocrat, is hosting a formal dinner party for his friends at his luxurious mansion. At the end of the party Nóbile, his wife, their guests and his butler (the other servants have already left) find themselves unable to leave the dining-room, so settle down to sleep on couches and the floor. The following morning they are still in the same inexplicable predicament. The doors are not locked but they are still unable to leave, as if some mysterious force field or psychological barrier were preventing them from doing so. They remain in the house in this state for several days, even though they run out of food and can only obtain water by breaking open a wall to get access to a water pipe. Even when one guest is taken ill, and later dies, they still cannot break out. The police and a crowd of people gather outside the house, but they are no more able to enter than those inside are to get out.

Luis Buñuel was one of the founders of cinematic surrealism, dating back to "Un Chien Andalou", his early collaboration with Salvador Dali, and "The Exterminating Angel" is often described as "surrealist". The surrealism starts with the title, which has nothing to do with anything we see on screen. Buñuel, who acted as both writer and director, explains the strange plight of the guests, either in rational or in supernatural terms. Nor does he provide us with any interpretation of the film's symbolism, leaving such matters for his viewers to interpret for themselves.

That, of course, has not prevented the critics coming up with their own interpretations, and there would not be room to deal with all of them in this review, although Buñuel clearly intended an element of satire at the expense of the upper classes. (It is no accident that the host of the party has the surname "Nóbile"). A popular interpretation put forward by, among others, Roger Ebert is that the film is an allegory of the Spanish Civil War and of the Francoist regime to which it led. (Buñuel himself was, of course, an opponent of Francoism and produced this film in exile in Mexico). Many of Spain's aristocracy and wealthy classes initially supported Franco, and many of them may well have hosted parties like the one we see here to celebrate his victory, but by the early sixties his brutal dictatorship had lasted for a quarter of a century and many Spaniards, even among those who had once supported him, were starting to feel trapped. A flock of sheep plays a part in the story, and these may represent those ordinary Spaniards who supported the Nationalist side in the Civil War, "sheep" being a commonplace metaphor for people who are stupid and easily led. They end up being eaten by the trapped aristocrats.

"The Exterminating Angel" is a film which tends to divide opinion, with some hailing it as a masterpiece and others finding it incomprehensible. I myself tend towards the second position, although Buñuel would probably have said that he never intended it to be "comprehensible" in the sense of having a simple, easily understandable meaning. He probably intended it to be just what it is, an elegant but ultimately insoluble puzzle with no more "meaning" than a Dali painting. 6/10

The Exterminating Angel, what a movie- I've seen it twice now and each time it went against (in the best possible way) my better logic. It's a work that's the product of a kind of madman place, and it stays impressive forty plus years later due to its humor. Like Dr. Strangelove, or maybe more so akin to a Kafka work submerged in Catholic plague, the film subverts expectations. At the start of the film, Luis Bunuel makes it clear as day that his only explanation is that its nonsense. If one were wanting to dig on a pure comedy level it would work because the dialog is so strange and out of place (if taken seriously) but consistently so, and the timing of the sort of downward spiral that plunges into the denouement (if there is one). If one were wanting to look at it for more of the technical reasons, its peerless- Bunuel has a steady, carefully controlled camera, quite tradition at times. But then at others he reveals his revealing, awesome flashes of symbolism, which may or may not fly over some viewers heads.

And then, if one were to go so far, on an existential level it goes into the realm of nothingness, a kind of study of how a nonsensical existence, trapped for reasons not made clear to the viewer (barely to the rich cast of bourgeois, a running gag almost), which also calls in the Kafka aspect. By the hand of a surrealist comes a deadpan satire, and it almost becomes a dark fable (the Catholic aspect to the film) by the end. It's a rather shocking film on the first try, which is why it probably had some controversy when it first opened. Giving it another chance, the film works better, on a more sensory level almost. This is the kind of film where you're either scratching your head and turning it off midway through, or laughing (while in the grips of cringing perhaps) and in a weird awe. One of Bunuel's very best Mexican films.

I just saw this for the first time yesterday. Although the movie was made in 1962, it was a very grainy print, and I am assuming that this was deliberate - it looked as though we were looking at something from the 1920s. I liked this; it was all part of it. This was an amazing movie - and amazingly prescient - a metaphor for the human condition (not just the upper classes), our life on this planet, and how fragile it all is (the slightest pressure on resources, the slightest dislocation, and the whole edifice crumbles). The room they did not want to leave is this planet earth and our life on it. The guests are a metaphor for all of us, and we are very, very attached to life. When we are having a wonderful time, for sure we don't want to leave life and the planet - and even when we have made the most terrible mess of it (because we don't want to leave) and the whole thing has degenerated into fighting, bickering,destruction, hunger, thirst - we STILL don't want to leave. In the movie, as in the cycle of life, it is not until there is a reprieve when everything suddenly clicks back into how it was (reincarnation?)that they are able to leave. They go back to the Church - but that is no answer either, because the whole same thing happens over again. At the end, the sheep all go to the church - "lambs to the slaughter" (and English phrase - I am English).

It is an interesting parable for today's world: the rich (First World countries?) take for granted food and water -- until they experience the loss of it firsthand themselves (the Third World?), and then all the social castes and 'mores' which they (we) have built up, crumble - they fight each other, they hallucinate, they hunger, they thirst. Later, even once they are free of the room, we see fighting in the streets of the city, with troops firing on the civilian population. The movie was made in 1962: does any of this sound familiar in today's world of 2006 ?

Although this film is considered a classic, it's filled with political symbolism that is no longer relevant. When you subtract that, you end up with a 95 minute episode of the Twilight Zone. I was unable to have any compassion for the mysteriously trapped characters. I realize that their inability to understand why they are trapped is not supposed to be explained but it takes more adequate character development to make this an interesting situation to me. We only have moments of yelling, anger, frustration, non-sequiturs and unconvincing dialog. Supposedly there are moments of jealousy and betrayal but all this adds up to nothing. The ending is ridiculous without being funny and the ending after the ending was a predictable way to stretch the thin idea past 90 minutes.

Yes, Luis Buñuel had an interesting career but I don't know why people consider this his best work.

This film has an interesting premise: a dinner party of rich bourgeoisie find themselves inexplicably unable to leave the house. They slowly devolve into savagery and vulgarity. It's sort of like the Eagles song "Hotel California" except that this film lasts 70 minutes longer than the song. And you can't dance to it.

But the problem is not the slow pace nor is it the lack of plot. The main problem is that Bunuel fails to develop his characters, so we are left with a satire of... nothing! There is really nothing to sink our philosophical teeth into. The resolution is utterly meaningless and random, and it leaves you saying to yourself "I could have thought of a million better ways to end that movie." But as it were, Bunuel chose the most vapid resolution, similar to a cheezy TV scifi drama where the solution is to "switch the polarity from plus to minus!" This film is utterly unfulfilling to anyone who is thirsty for philosophy and depth. Of course the Bunuel fans will retort that Bunuel never claimed to have any meaning to his films. Sadly, I must agree. But what frustrates me most is that he had the perfect opportunity to deliver an insightful commentary on the human condition, but instead he let it degrade into utter schlock.

Bunuel loves to ridicule the rich. That's fine, but maybe he should give us a reason WHY the rich are so ridiculous. It's not enough to make fun of a man just because he wears a tuxedo. Without giving us sufficient insights into the personalities of his characters, that's all Bunuel is doing: making fun of people because of the clothes and jewelry they wear. But I suppose back in that era, it was en vogue to make fun of rich people. Come to think of it, audiences haven't changed much in the last 50 years.

I give this film 4 stars instead of 1 because at least in this film Bunuel doesn't slaughter any animals on camera.

'L'enfer c'est les autres' (Hell is other people), wrote the French existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, in his play, 'No Exit' (sometimes referred to - and has been performed - as 'In Camera'), that surmised the narrative of three deceased individuals locked in a room, one that they eventually realise they will be spending eternity together in. Luis Bunuel used this simple meta-narrative concept of people trapped, to create one of his finest satires, and his first explicitly surrealist film since L'Age D'Or (1930). After Bunuel's previous film, Viridiana (1961), was condemned by the Vatican and banned in his native country of Spain (and where it was made), he moved back to Mexico where he had been making films throughout the 1940's and 50's, and produced a scabrous attack on General Francisco Franco's Spanish fascist dictatorship, and the institutions, and bourgeois facets of the country that were founded on the destruction of the poor and the proletariat, during the civil war that ended in 1939.

Whilst the film works as political allegory, on a base narrative level, it functions as an irrational comedy; or farce. The guests arrive for a lavish dinner, but as they arrive, the maids leave, and progressively all the hired help leave them. Once dinner is complete, the guests congregate in the living room, but they all begin to realise that they are unable to leave the room at all. When this is discovered we observe that they attempt to go, but are either distracted or simply stop or break down at the boundary of the room. This continues through days, possibly months - the characters concept of time completely obliterated. The group falls into decay, primitive urges overwhelm them, and as this representation of Western Civilisation breaks down, the group become brutally savage, turning on the host of the dinner, demanding sacrifice. The group slaughter the lambs that were originally to be used in a dinner prank.

At first the guests seem to simply ignore what is happening to them, and continue with inane chat. Exterior to the "party", the grounds are surrounded, but not even the police are able to enter, given the same mysterious barrier that prevents entry. It's almost a perfect parable, illustrating the ignorance of the Spanish bourgeoisie, as they strip the rights and dignity of the proletariat (here the maids leave on their arrival), whilst divorcing their minds from the violence and corruption of a dictatorship. But with this, it also shows how even the "civilised" sections of society, once they are stripped of their social status, their inherited manners of "education", and their ability to use wealth, the fall into absolute decay, probably falling apart greater than the lower classes, with their lessened moral outlook, and an almost infantile inability to deal with regular obstacles.

Winner of the 1962 Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival, this was to begin what become (rather belatedly for the 62 year old) his most productive, celebrated and interesting period of his career, based in Paris, beginning with Belle de Jour (1967) and ending with That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). This is the period that he developed and expanded his own style, and his unique vision on film. The Exterminating Angel has also given inspiration for others. It is a clear influence on Jean-Luc Godard's wonderfully bleak and satiric depiction of the bourgeoisie and the end of Western Civilisation, Week End (1967). The idea was also utilised in one sketch from Monty Python's Meaning of Life (1983), that saw the guests leaving as ghosts. This is by far, one of his greatest achievements, beautifully realised, with comic touches, and moments of surrealism that both bemuse and amuse.

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This film, constitutes the absolute surrealist masterpiece of all seasons. With unique virtuosity, Bunuel shows how easily a person makes his bonds and limits his freedom. Who are however these persons? They are those that made fortune without have worked never in their life or those, that with illegal ways acquired power and money. Naturally the one that puts unreal bonds in all the persons, with a view to check and dominate them, is the Church. The director accuse the high society and the Church and puts them to live as simple persons and they make things that they would never make. In this masterpiece Bunuel points out also the corruptness that exists in the society, which emanates from the Church and has expanded everywhere. It is not simply a film, it is a sociological approach of corrupted modern person.

This surrealistic movie is a satire on the upper class. It was way too funny and a classic. A movie with repetition to emphasize the story line. This is about people brought together at a dinner party, invited because of they are all upper-class people who are well known among one another. Yet for some reason, they can't leave the mansion. An invisible barrier that holds them back. They all have some excuse not to leave. And after the food and water runs out, they spend however many of days (they don't fully explain) together, starving and putting up living with each other.

All the actors start getting fed up with each other. One lady gets disillusional. You start to realize, they have nothing in common. That the only thing they had in common was their wealth. But what happens when you are stuck in one place, and wealth really starts losing its worth? You then see how out of place they all are amongst each other. Afterall, in the very beginning, they were all bad mouthing each other. Bunuel mocks their phoniness.

Material things in the house, loses their meaning. They start peeing in expensive things, they don't seem to use toilets. A man is shaving for no reason just keeps on shaving without noticing it. A women keeps seeing a hand moving she gets psychotic.

Randomly, we see some sheep in a kitchen. This represents the whole "out of place" theme. That these people are the sheep. At the end of the movie, after all the mess at the house is taken care of, we see that disaster is about to happen again; and you have nothing else to think except for "sucks to be you."

This movie is hilarious and you sometimes get agitated with the characters. I highly recommend it. Especially for Luis Bunuel lovers who remarkably made movies in many other languages besides Spanish.

10/10

Made in 1962, THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL is a highly complex film to watch, despite is ostensibly straightforward story. A group of rich people gather together in a large house for a party, but find themselves unable to escape. Deprived of their basic comforts such as food, water and clothing, they are transformed into savages. Outside the building, people look on in astonishment; while being concerned for the welfare of those trapped inside, they make no efforts to help. Bunuel's film can be seen as an allegory of contemporary society, in which the veneer of civilization is highly superficial. Rich people, just like their less privileged counterparts, are unable to find ways of extricating themselves from difficult situations. Even though they escape at the end, they are subsequently imprisoned in the church: Bunuel shows that nobody, not even established institutions, can help them (or us, for that matter). The film ends with a flock of sheep running towards the church where the people are imprisoned, suggesting that human beings are like lambs to the slaughter. The only way to cope with this inevitable fate is to trust in Providence; hence it comes as no surprise to find the action taking place in Providence Street. THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL needs to be viewed more than once in order to appreciate the subtlety of Bunuel's script, as well as the brilliance of his cinematic technique, but it is well worth the effort.

Buñuel's 1962 masterpiece of bourgeoisie-baiting Freudian repression, 'The Exterminating Angel' is a Surrealist slaughterhouse.

A group of wealthy upper-class members of the bourgeoisie find themselves mysteriously trapped inside a house when attending a lavish dinner party. The doors are not locked and there is no logical reason why they cannot leave, yet they remain trapped like prisoners, and likewise, no one can enter (the flummoxed police are stationed outside, trying to work out how to save the rich people). Over the course of the film, the loathing and contempt that they really always felt for both themselves and one another comes bubbling to the rotten surface as they are slowly stripped of their status and pretensions, fighting over water, sleeping on the floor, and insulting one another as their hungry bodies begin to stink from the oppressive heat.

In this new world, the bourgeoisie's money and power are reduced to worthlessness. 'Anything but physical violence! This is not like us! Remember who you are, remember your upbringing!', a doctor exclaims, trying to break up a brawl, but this is a meaningless gesture -- here the rich are no better than anyone else, for even the servants and cooks had the earthy precognition to realise what was coming and depart at the start of the film, before the invisible padlocks manifested.

This film is a brilliant, incredibly funny example of Buñuel's career manifesto: the rich and powerful are nothing without their wealth, and in the absence of the poor they have no one to control or feel superior to. Take it all away and they become the human beings (ie. animals) that all people really are, deep down. The poor are more important to the rich than they ever realise.

A film like 'The Exterminating Angel' serves to remind us that, regardless of wealth, we are all trapped inside the frigid, repressive boxes of our own (and society's) creation, and a conscious decision to leave them on our own terms is nearly impossible.

One of Bunuel's most rare and amazing , ¨The Exterminating Angel¨ is packed with surreal moments , criticism , absurd situations and astonishing nightmares . This is one Buñuel's best , including characteristically scatological satire , fierce as well as surreal nightmares and surprising events . Dramatic film about strange relationships among various members of higher class when they remain locked into a mansion . As a luxurious mansion is the place wherein some dinner guests find they cannot for any definable reason leave the dining room .

This is weird story about a group of higher class , a drama with surrealism and sour portrait upon social stratum , catholicism , with plenty of dream imaginary and many other things , being stunningly realized by the Spanish maestro of surrealism , the great Luis Buñuel . This is a typical Buñuel film , as there are a lot of symbolism , social critique , including mockery or wholesale review upon religion , especially Catholicism . Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both subversive behavior and religion , issues well shown in a lot of films and that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career . Here Bunuel gives a perverse studio about wealthy people , desire and tension when a misfit bunch is closed for any inexplicable reason ; and even being strongly cut and banned by Russian censorship because the idea of people not being allowed to "leave a party" was considered offensive and anti-government . The scene where a bear and two sheep appear during the dinner party was based on a real incident at a dinner party that Buñuel once attended in New York . In his autobiography Luis Buñuel claims he was asked by Warner Brothers to work on a story that eventually was filmed as The beast with five fingers (1946) , it contains many of the elements of the earlier film including the large mansion, piano recital, and stabbing of a disembodied hand . Interesting and thought-provoking screenplay from the same Luis Buñuel and Luis Alcoriza, Buñuel's usual screenwriter ; they pull off a straight-faced treatment of shocking subject matter .The movie script was original and early working title "The Castaways of Providence Street" , then Luis Buñuel took the title The Exterminating Angel from his friend José Bergamin, the Spanish poet, who had mentioned it the year before for a play he wanted to write . Out of all the films in Luis Buñuel's Mexican/Spanish film period, this is the only film he had complete creative control over . Nice acting by all-Mexican-star cast such as Claudio Brook , Jacqueline Andere , Enrique Rambal and Silvia Pinal of Viridiana , among others . The film relies heavily on the relationship between them , as are developed love-hatred conflicts . Furthermore , Buñuel satirizes and he carries out outright critical to aristocracy , bourgeoisie and attack upon religion . Atmospheric as well as evocative cinematography by Gabriel Figueroa , Buñuel's ordinary .

This thoughtful and dramatic motion picture was well produced by Gustavo Alatriste and compellingly directed by Luis Buñuel who was voted the 14th Greatest Director of all time . This Buñuel's strange film belongs to his Mexican period ; in fact , it's plenty of known Mexican actors . Born in Calanda , Aragon (1900) , Buñuel subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the university there, where his close friends included Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca. After moving to Paris , at the beginning Buñuel did a variety of film-related odd jobs , including working as an assistant to director Jean Epstein . With financial help from his mother and creative assistance from Dalí, he made his first film , this 17-minute "Un Chien Andalou" (1929), and immediately catapulted himself into film history thanks to its disturbing images and surrealist plot . The following year , sponsored by wealthy art patrons, he made his first picture , the scabrous witty and violent "Age of Gold" (1930), which mercilessly attacked the church and the middle classes, themes that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career . That career, though, seemed almost over by the mid-1930s, as he found work increasingly hard to come by and after the Spanish Civil War , where he made ¨Las Hurdes¨ , as Luis emigrated to the US where he worked for the Museum of Modern Art and as a film dubber for Warner Bros . He subsequently went on his Mexican period he teamed up with producer Óscar Dancigers and after a couple of unmemorable efforts shot back to international attention with the lacerating study of Mexican street urchins in ¨Los Olvidados¨ (1950), winning him the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival. But despite this new-found acclaim, Buñuel spent much of the next decade working on a variety of ultra-low-budget films, few of which made much impact outside Spanish-speaking countries , though many of them are well worth seeking out . As he went on filming "The Great Madcap" , ¨The brute¨, "Wuthering Heights", ¨El¨ , "The Criminal Life of Archibaldo De la Cruz" , ¨Robinson Crusoe¨ , ¨Death in the garden¨ and many others . After returning his native country, Spain, by making ¨Viridiana¨ this film was prohibited on the grounds of blasphemy as well as ¨The milky way¨ or Via Lactea , both of them were strongly prohibited by Spanish censorship . Most Buñuel's films were surreal black comedies , parables that satirized moral hypocrisy , social moral , artistic pretension, and , of course , the Catholic Church . In French-Spanish final period the collaboration with producer Serge Silberman and writer Jean-Claude Carrière gave notorious as well as polemic films such as ¨Viridiana¨ , ¨The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" and ¨Belle De Jour¨. His last one was the notorious ¨That obscure object of desire¨ (1977

A film with a very intriguing premise, the idea nevertheless wears rather thin not after long, but there's enough in it to still make this an interesting watch. Buñuel is satirising the mannerisms of the upper class here, and a few thought-provoking ideas do come to light, but despite the characters been quite well introduced, few are explored very well. It is a bit hard for this reason to care for any of the characters or their experience, and it ends up being quite melodramatic and dreary to watch. The story is not very convincing either, since it interchanges between horror and satire so that we are not sure just what exactly is keeping the characters at bay. As a surrealist piece, an explanation is perhaps not necessary, and although few, its few surrealism bits work very well. The black and white photography is perfectly suited to the project, with stark contrasts and some nice gliding shots. There are a number of good elements in the film, but I would be cautious about how strongly to recommend it.

A wealthy couple throw a large dinner party at their house. Things go well but when it is time to leave, nobody does. This reluctance to leave carries on to the next day, at which time it is apparent that they CANNOT leave. An invisible force seems to be preventing them from leaving.

Written and directed by Luis Bunuel, a movie that kept me intrigued for most of its duration, only to let me down at the end. It doesn't start too coherently, feeling very clumsy in its initial setup. This is deliberate, it turns out, as the later plot development explains this clumsiness. Once it gets going it is very intriguing, as the guests are trapped in a room with nothing physically stopping them from leaving.

It also becomes a good study in human interaction and behaviour, as the guests turn on each other and self-interest overrides the greater good.

Everything was set up for a great revelation and solution to the puzzle, plus a moment of profundity. However, none of these really came. The solution to leaving the room was incredibly weak, and we never get an explanation for the entrapment. The conclusion gives some indication to what it was all about, but it is hardly revolutionary or overly profound.

Disappointing.

To keep this review short, I found that this movie is chaotic, boring, messy and most of all, uninteresting. All of this is fine, you come across amateurish movies like this once in a while, you turn off your T. V. and move to something else. After all, not all movies can be perfect.

However, what led me to watch this movie was other comments here on this site. What people called boring movie is now called "surreal". Sorry, but why do "surreal" movies have to have a messy, amateurish, and above all, an incoherent scenario and dialogues? Can't we have interesting and realistic discussions, with occasionally some surreal moments? In this way, the surrealism can be emphasized.

And no, this movie is not creative nor intellectual. It is incoherent from the beginning. In the first 15 minutes, the dialogues were so messy and unrealistic that I didn't understand anything. Therefore, I cannot remember them, and consequently, they are meaningless. Incoherent is not artistic, nor creative. Not everyone can be David Lynch.