Filed under: Art, Comedy, Culture, Film, Food, Graphics, Politics | Tags: surrealism
The DVD cover art for Luis Bunuel’s The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie has got a giant pair of lips with some feet and a big hat. Its kinda cute and says a good bit about what the film involves. Instead of a face, we get enlarged, fetishized elements of a person, presumably someone who puts on airs. A big black hat, glossy painted lips and high heeled shoes.
Its a satire in the strongest sense of the word, not just poking fun, more outright denouncing the subject matter entirely. I wouldn’t say its funny though. Its really cynical and pokerfaced. You may be puzzled by the odd sequencing and bewildered by the situations but I never had a laugh out loud moment, that’s for sure. I don’t even think I snickered.
The central element of the film is the attempts of a group of upper class donks to get together for a meal. They try their best, but a combination of unfortunate events and their animalistic impulses deny them this. Towards the end, they even sit down and get to the main course, but Bunuel denies them the finish. These dogs aren’t even allowed a simple meal.
The subversion is obvious. Its purposeful but not spiteful. These crusty, fako folks are pathetic, sad creatures. You almost feel sorry for them. They gather and shoot shit, mostly shitting on a fictitious country and the ambassador, or talking about how their poncey food is so good. They do the same thing 500 times over. It’s sad. Plus, they can’t even finish what they wanted to do. From a simple misunderstanding to the death of a restaurant manager to an army invading the room, we get a whole spread of crazy interruptions. Which saves us from the boring episodes of inane behaviour amongst the preening actors.
Every facet of the Bourgeois is given a grilling here, even the church. A Bishop with a green finger fetish joins the group, buffoon like in one interchange where he reveals the depth of his lack of knowledge. He appears at first in his robes, greeted with a kiss by a maid but returns in gardening gear and gets ushered out by the owners of a house. Yet, in Clark Kent swiftness, he rings the bell again and is greeted with apologies when he’s back in the robes. Clothes maketh the man. If he were wearing papal robes, they’d probably take him for the pope too.
Then there’s the dream sequences. The characters get into nighmarish situations, where they variously end up in jail only to be saved by a dead policeman or they end up as actors on a stage when they thought they were going for dinner, even forgetting their lines. There’s dreams within dreams and these get stitched together by the 6 main characters walking down a lonely road in a huge field with no destination in sight. Rather peasant status for some rich folk.
It’s one big slap in the face for anyone who thinks they’re anything more than the apes we really are. There are those who will feel aghast at the thought of themselves as pretentious twats. Then there are those who think it’s a massive insult. Then there may be those who might dismiss it as mere entertainment. And yet others might actually trump the film as some sort of masterpiece, like the Academy For Motion Picture Arts And Sciences handing out the Oscar Discreet Charm won for best foreign language film back in ‘73.
More Coen Brothers’ goodness and more heist goodness as well. Ladykillers is a 2004 film about a bunch of criminals hatching a plot to steal some money from a floating casino somewhere in the Southern region of the US.
Its actually a remake of a 1955 flick of the same name, only the setting, situations and characters are altered somewhat. Reading off wikipedia reveals that the plots are similar.
Basically, its another flick with a cast comprised of screwball characters, which is a classic Coen stamp it seems. The leader of the criminal gang is Tom Hanks’ Professor character, whose penchant for speaking endlessly in a faux old timey southern dandy fashion is seriously irritating, but is also his best trait. He rents a room from an old black lady, who’s a fervent church goer that loves gospel music and hates “hippity-hop”.
Tom Hanks – Clearly NOT a Nigerian Prince.
The house itself also has a basement, which the professor convinces the old lady to allow him to use as a recital space for his “renaissance” ensemble. This crew consists of Gawain, a young black man working on the inside on the casino, The General, a presumably ex-Vietcong tunnel expert/Hitler worshipper, Pancake, an explosives expert with irritable bowel syndrome and Lump, the dum goon. They cart in instruments and basically set up camp, playing one of the most classical pieces ever by Boccherini to disguise their inability to play anything at all.
They actually manage to steal the money, only one by one, they fall foul of fate and ultimately, its the old lady, Mrs. Munson, who outlasts them all.
I’m just hypothesizing here, but if Ladykillers is anything to go by, I’d expect the original to be the film that may have possibly spawned the deadly granny concept, seen in recent films such as Madagascar and its sequel.
