Hey there, if you have a few minutes, let me tell you about this charming dream that I had last night. I dreamed that I was watching this film by the great surreal Spanish director Luis Buñuel called something like The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. In this movie, six wealthy friends attempt to get together for dinner – several times. Each occasion is frustrated one way or another – by four of them arriving as guests a day earlier than the hosts believed to be the agreed upon occasion; by the café being out of tea, then coffee, and finally virtually everything except water (they had a very busy day); by an invasion of terrorists, and so forth. The six friends include the Ambassador of Miranda, Don Raphael (Fernando Rey), Francois Thevenot (Paul Frankeur) and his wife Simone (Delphine Seyrig), Simone’s alcoholic sister Florence (Bulle Ogier), and the Senechals, Henri (Pierre Cassel) and Alice (Stephane Audran). These are pretty decent folks except that (a) the three men are engaged in importing and distributing illicit drugs using Don Raphael's diplomatic pouch; (b) Don Raphael is banging Francois’ wife, Simone, on the side; (c) all of them are grotesquely snooty about commoners; (d) they’re all hypocritical; and (e) none have anything to talk about of any consequence. In short, these self-indulgent and self-centered characters provide Buñuel with ample opportunity to trot out his usual subject matter: the insipidity and hypocrisy of human society. Well, that’s fine with me – I have no love lost for the values or depth of intellect of conventional society either – but if we’re going to spend a little over 100 minutes with these vacuous people, let’s make sure we get either some hearty laughs or heap tons of scorn on them! No such luck.

All in all, the movie was rather boring and I dreamed that part way through it I fell asleep – still wearing the headphones I was using to listen to the film (it was late and I didn’t want to disturb the rest of the family). While I was dozing off in the midst of the film, I had a bizarre dream. I was having dinner with my family at our dinner table downstairs. Krish wasn’t there, but my wife Elsie was, my daughter Joline, my son Matt, and my youngest daughter Alina. Joline’s boyfriend, J.A., was also there except for some reason he was dressed up like a bishop and was holding a shovel that he had been using in the garden. In the middle of dinner, there was a knock on the door and it was a guy in an army uniform. He said that they were in the middle of maneuvers in the neighborhood and could he and his unit join us for dinner? Elsie said, “Sure,” and they all piled into the house. There were about thirty of them and our house is not all that big, but we gathered as many extra chairs as we could find and squeezed this platoon in around the table, except some had to stand behind those of us at the table. After a while, a message came for the Colonel saying that the red unit had attacked and that they had to get back to the war game. So, they all left and we went back to eating dinner. Suddenly, there was this awful racket!! Like artillery shells, grenades, rifle rounds and so forth exploding everywhere right outside the house. I said that I thought that it was a battle going on between our previous guests and the red unit. Elsie said that she thought it was just something that was happening in the dream that I was having while watching the movie. Joline said, “No, I think the racket is something that you’re dreaming in the dream within the dream about watching a movie by Buñuel.” Matt had another idea. He thought that the noise was coming from the movie that I was watching in my dream (since I was still wearing the headphones). Alina said that she thought that the noise was probably our dogs (Duffy and Kiki) barking while I was sleeping and that I had incorporated their barking into my dream. But Duffy said, “Don’t go blaming us for the racket! If you’d let us out to tinkle already, we wouldn’t be barking!”

This is what Buñuel’s film The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is like. You never really know which parts of the film are reality and which parts are a dream. Some parts are even a dream within a dream. Then again, it doesn’t much matter, since all of its pretty weird. After watching it, I told my wife that it was a really bizarre film. Nothing much happens and it is very confusing and rather boring much of the time. In the end, you really can’t make heads or tails of it which is not very satisfying for someone like me who wants to overanalyze every movie anyway. Elsie said, “Honey, it’s time to get up. It’s 8 o’clock and you said you needed to be awoken at 8.” Turns out I’d been sleeping and only dreaming that I had written the foregoing paragraphs.

Now that I’m awake, I guess I should add a couple of more things. I don’t have any problem with absurdity as a vehicle for humor. I enjoy such purveyors of absurdity as W.S. Gilbert, Monty Python, Peter Sellers, and Spike Jones. I am particularly fond of the plays of Eugène Ionesco, including The Bald Soprano and The Future Is in Eggs. The problem for me with Buñuel’s surrealistic variety of absurdity in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is that it fails to be either funny or scathing condemnation. It’s just boring! The second thing I need to get off my chest is to warn readers that my reaction to this film appears to be a distinctly minority opinion. Every national review that I checked out (about ten) as well as two Epinionator reviews that I read praised this film lavishly. One national review, for example, claims that it “has insouciant charm and an effortless ebullience that offers continual delight.” So, take my opinion with a grain of salt. On the other hand, if you’re prone to being bored by artsy foreign films anyway, then stay away from this one in particular. The nifty Criterion DVD two-disc version has some worthy extras: the theatrical trailer, a 98-minute documentary about Buñuel by Jose Louis Lópes-Linares and Javier Rioyo, and a Buñuel filmography. This film is in French and Spanish with English subtitles and is rated PG.

I fully expected to enjoy this film when I sat down to watch it. My previous experiences with Buñuel have all been rewarding: : L’Age d’Or (1930), Viridiana (1961), Belle de Jour (1967), Tristana (1970), and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). I guess I’ve never quite figured out the rationale for constructing a film around the notion of satirizing boring people and their interminable ennui and then expecting the product to be entertaining. Ring-aling-aling-aling! Ring-aling-aling-aling! Oh, it’s the damn alarm clock. Is it morning already? Say . . . . what were y’all doing in my dream?

Recommended:
No

Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older