gavin6942 The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave.Following the Viridiana scandal, Buñuel returned to Mexico, but kept his production team and decided to make another movie starring Silvia Pinal. The film, originally called The Outcasts of Providence Street, was renamed The Exterminating Angel after Buñuel picked it from an unfinished play his friend José Bergamín was writing at the time. The film was released in Mexico in 1962, and was just as controversial as its predecessor had been.Bunuel is a strange guy. Of course, he always was, really making his name on such crazy projects as "Un Chien Andelou" and "Age D'Or". In his later years, he seemed to really switch to a more Marxist outlook and was quick to satirize class and religion. Here he does that well. I would not say this is my favorite of his films, and possibly not top three, but it still deserves to be seen.

lasttimeisaw A Bruñuel school's invitation is always becoming for any cinephile's reservoir, currently this film marks my fourth entrance into his territory after the lesser approachable THE MILKY WAY (1969, 6/10), THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL is an outstanding surrealism allegory, Bruñuel maneuvers a sleight of hand with sheer simplicity, the entire story is predominantly crammed in a living room of a regal mansion, the owners Lucía (Gallardo) and Edmundo (Rambal) host a dinner party for 20 middle-class guests. Bizarrely the party never ends, all of them, with the steward Julio (Brook) are incarcerated in the living room, whoever intends to get out of the room, will involuntarily alter his mind to stay, meanwhile for the people outside, the same mysteriously inexplicable force hedges them from entering too. Trapped in this claustrophobic space, the coexistence turns sour with time ruthless consuming the sustenance, the energy and the etiquette, simultaneously squabbles, vituperation, oneiric hallucinations, suicidal tendency and roughhousing all come to the fore (Bruñuel could go to extreme with cannibalism but he chose to refrain), the procedure of everyone takes off their facade and betrays their true self is excruciatingly riveting, the film could scale new heights as a superb probing essay on human nature if Bruñuel cared to exhume deeper to each character's meaty back-story (the fraternal hint, the flirtatious lady with terminal cancer, the undercurrent of adultery between the hostess and the Colonel, a votive trip to Lordes, the before/after reaction of taking the ulcer pills, not to mention the "La Valkiria" Leticia played by the first-billed Silvia Pinal, there are a slew of untold scandals are in need of elaboration). Instead the upshot is executed with a much murkier distinction, conspicuously they are all pawns in Bruñuel's storybook, it is rather an exacting task to distinguish all the different roles from a first-viewing, if only Robert Altman would do a remake, and expunge the political metaphor of the ending, then it would be transformed into a highly-watchable character analysis and an incisive farce with eye-dropping theatrical showpieces.Of course Bruñuel's mastery is omnipresent in the film, the superimposition shot of a clear sky upon a facial portrait, the outlandish amalgam of lambs and a baby bear, and the creative approach to offer a vent to let them out (a Paradisi's sonata is the turning point), until the climax, we all realize it is just a trial run, and the denouement is a dual indictment on undiscerning religious belief and the political status quo at then, pepped up with a palpable feeling of hopelessness. Also the slap to the bourgeois is loud and clear since the film's opening, it is the servants who are sentient of the pending uncanniness, and urge to leave the house as soon as possible, only the obtuse are being entrapped by the almighty trickster. Then what happens to the hoi polloi in the church? The purge is more generic or we should merely stop over-interpretation? Anyway who needs a concrete answer as long as Bruñuel is concerned.

John Carney So I've entered into an agreement with my friend Jose who is originally from Spain and now lives in Paris. We're going to pick movies for each other to watch and review. The idea is to get us both out of our normal viewing routines and expose us to something different. The Exterminating Angel was Jose's first pick for me.I'll start off by saying most of Jose's choices in movies are a darker than mine. Jose said that Luis Bunuel is one of his favorite directors and that this was one of his more accessible films. I purposely did not read any reviews of the movie before watching it so that I could develop my own opinions. I read some other reviews afterward to see what other viewers thought.Overall, the movie felt like a combination of a long Twilight Zone episode combined with a surrealistic art house film. The director was clearly making a commentary on the upper class of Mexico at the time the movie was made, including much of the inane interaction that typically happens at social events. The repetitive dialog in some of the scenes showed a lack of interest by some of the characters in each other.Despite being part of the elite of Mexico's society, the group of antagonists was clearly dependent upon their servants. Once the servants disappeared, the veneer of civility began to quickly fade. Bunuel did have a couple of instances where a scene repeated itself, but I frankly did not understand why.The device of having the party guests trapped in the room was never explained, and I think I preferred it that way. As the days began to pass, the feeling of hopelessness became palpable. It was also interesting that those outside of the house were not able to get in as well. One possible interpretation is that they became trapped by their own social conformity. More than a few characters commented on why the others had not left the party, yet none of them attempted to do so. Bunuel may have been saying that this type of social conformity will eventually lead to a societal breakdown. Or perhaps he was saying something different. I don't know for sure.I was a bit surprised that the guests eventually did get out of the room and the house, albeit with some casualties. However, the last scene in the Church with which Bunuel concluded the film was clearly a jab at the Catholic Church. The scene of the goats running into the Church was a bit humorous.Overall, the movie was interesting but it did seem a bit dated to me. However, since I know very little about Spanish or Mexican cinema of the early 60's, I wouldn't be surprised if this was considered avant-garde at the time it was released.

felixoteiza Reading these reviews I notice that people keep making the mistake of judging a film by the intentions of its creator. So, if Buñuel says that TEA doesn't have a meaning we got to believe him so. That's wrong. We have to understand that what distinguishes an artist from the rest of us is his/her capacity to bring to the open in a orderly, harmonic fashion what lies hidden in his/her--or in the collective--subconscious mind, many times without even being aware of its meaning. For that reason his/her opinion on the finished artwork is just as good as ours. Now, in what most of us agree is that there's a metaphor here somewhere; and knowing about Buñuel's rather poor opinion of the upper crust it's just too tempting to jump into the "useless-without-the-workers-loafers" wagon. But I find that just too easy; as that is something we would see anyway in any of his movies, even if the subject was an extraterrestrial invasion. The anti-bourgeoisie angle was something to be expected of him, which doesn't mean it has to be the central, or unique, topic of this film.What I think Buñuel's dealing with here, more than anything else, is mental traps; or rather mind prisons. Mental prisons in which people fall, for reasons that may have their origin in circumstances, traditions or in simple mindsets. Now, if you think I'm talking theory, let me mention this most famous ex.: Einstein was able to discover the Theory of Relativity mostly because of his faith in Mathematics, as he thought that everything in the physical world comes codified in numbers and so each one of its mysteries could be likely solved by putting numbers in it; i.e. by putting it into mathematical form--in equations & formulas. That seems logical and sensible. But then to his surprise, came the Quantum Mechanics revolution--which has given us computers, Internet, DVDs, etc--but which states that the physical world is much weirder than what he ever thought & that many things in it happen randomly, by mere probability. Einstein never accepted that--God doesn't play with die, was his famous reply. He never accepted the laws of physics that have given us much of what's part of our daily lives, including Ipods, Tweeters and cell phones. For him, his own image of the world was more important than all what was happening around him. He had fallen in a mental prison, just like the characters in TEA. These people have all come to believe they can't get out of that room simply because that idea has gotten stuck in their heads, is part now of their mental reality, which is confirmed to them every time one tries, unsuccessfully, to do so--or rather the room embodies the idea, mindset in question in the metaphor).I know this explanation won't satisfy those who look for the anti-bourgeoisie angle, but I think I can fill up that hole. These people have lost their freedom of movements because of the mental trap they have fallen into, I said. Now this can only be conceived if they are otherwise able to move freely--or the thing won't fly. And the leisure class is the only one that fills such a condition. They are the only people who may get out of bed, or not, next morning simply because they are not forced to earn a living. With any other social class--middle, lower--this plot wouldn't work. In that case people would have simply broken out of the room because if they are not at their desks, production lines, kitchens, early next morning they'll be disciplined or fired. So this plot is only possible with people who does have usually the freedom of doing whatever they wish next morning and the upper crust is the only one capable of doing that. Buñuel may have been all anti-elite you want but he was above an artist and for him was foremost to put the right characters into the right plot--not that he didn't enjoy throwing more than a few jabs to the gold laden in this one anyway.Besides that, most of what we see here is filling: bits of personal experiences, of dreams, of social meetings. For all I said, I don't think the house workers' flight means the loafers' dependence on them. Anyway, as a leftist, Buñuel preferred to paint workers in a more proactive way, I imagine, and in his world they deal with reality, with practical things, so at the time of the metaphors they must be out of the picture.Good cinematography; the B/W is perfect here for the mood and the atmosphere. I love how Buñuel can make his actors say the most unlikely, absurd, things without flinching. And see how self-conscious these slackers are, compared to the European bourgeois in Discreet Charm (far more relaxed & désinvolte) because of their perennial Third World complex, always striving not to bee seen as "Indians with bows & arrows" (that, Buñuel never got it: that his Mexican actors were doing a good job, but impersonating their own upper crust, not the European, as he wished).