Phantom of Liberty - Criterion Collection | Adriana Asti, Jenny Astruc

Phantom of Liberty - Criterion Collection | Adriana Asti, Jenny Astruc | Ostrich...

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Phantom of Liberty...

	Phantom of Liberty - Criterion Collection Adriana Asti, Jenny Astruc Criterion, 2005 average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Bourgeois convention is demolished in Luis Bu±uel's surrealist gem The Phantom of Liberty. Featuring an elegant soir#e with guests seated at toilet bowls, poker-playing monks using religious medals as chips, and police officers looking for a missing girl who is right under their noses, this perverse, playfully absurd comedy of nonsequiturs deftly compiles many of the themes that preoccupied Bu±uel throughout his career-from the hypocrisy of conventional morality to the arbitrariness of social arrangements.

"On a flimsy ground of reality, imagination spins out and waves new patterns."

This excellent collection of satirical vignettes is my kind of movie - crazy, dark and comical, it goes any direction it wants and does not follow any rules. When we try to grasp for the meaning, it is like a ghost, a phantom that "leaves us with a wisp of vapor in our hands" and disappears - very much like the liberty, the freedom the humans try to find but instead could only see its phantom disappearing. The film follows many characters on its way shifting effortlessly and playfully from the central ones to the minor ones making minor ones the central and going back and forth from one time period to another. It opens in Toledo during the Napoleonic occupation then jumps to the modern day Paris. It could've gone anywhere and introduced me to any character - it still would've been enormously interesting because it was made by the master who had never lost his curiosity, his inquisitive mind, his memory that consisted of the strange and amazing images, his sense of humor, his childhood dreams, his fantasies, dark and shining and who was able to throw them all on the screen like no one ever was able or will be able to do. To understand Bunuel completely would be as impossible as to catch the Phantom of Liberty - he will be always one of the best and unsolved mysteries in the Art of Cinema.

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Ostrich...

This film is my favorite of Bunuel's work. It's similar to a full length Monty Python episode, except it's in French, and the women are much better looking. It's very funny, surreal (of course), and strange, yet it makes a great deal of sense. The scene where people defecate in public and eat in private is hilarious, the scene where the priest gives children normal cards to play with, but the adults think they're pornographic is great too. The monks playing poker is quite a vivid image as well. Does this all make sense? Of course it does. All of Bunuel's films make sense in their own way. The final shot of an ostrich is a great way to end this film. I remember showing Bunuel's final film, That Obscure Object of Desire, to my sister, and as open minded as she is, she hated the film and the ending. She probably would have hated the ostrich ending in this one. For those who think Richard Linklater's Slacker was great should watch this film. The story structure (such as it is) of Slacker is exactly like the one here. Slacker is a good film, but The Phantom of Liberty is far superior. I love later Bunuel. This film, Discreet Charm, and Viridiana are my favorite Bunuel films...

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Bunuel's Finest Achievement

Luis Bunuel was a director whose work spanned decades, countries and styles, yet, throughout, maintained a keen eye for satire and a talent for presenting surreal imagery.

This film is possibly the best example of these aspects, and is arguably his best. The dinner table scene related by the teacher is one of the most hilarious scenes I've ever watched, and like most of the comedic scenes in the film, never falls flat. Although the movie is essentially a collection of skits, they are tied in effortlessly, and do have common themes running throughout (the hypocrisy of authoritarian organizations, particularly clerical).

I think this is a really good example of Bunuel's work, for those who have heard or read about him and want to find out more. Sure, many will recommend Un Chien Andalou, which is an undisputed masterpiecek, but The Phantom of Liberty is a very different film made at a different time, and epitomises Bunuel's later work (after his return to Europe). Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in world cinema, or generally, those looking for humour with a purpose.

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Genius, surreal absurdity that somehow makes perfect sense

Ok, how can you adequately review this film? Here's one scene--
A mysterious stranger is eyeballing a couple of little kids at the park. As a present for being such lovely little girls, he secretly gives them some "beautiful photographs" and instructs them not to show any grownups. Creepy.
Back at the house, their parents find the pictures and are outraged. The maid is subsequently fired for allowing this travesty to happen to their children.
Finally, when the pictures are shown to us, there is a sense of relief. They really are nothing more than a few photos of some elegant buildings and monuments. Classic!

Bunuel has lots of fun jacking with his audience. I love his dry humor. This entire movie lacks any traditional plot developments or linear narration. Its a series of loosely linked episodes that have underlying themes. Some profound statements on the irrational nature of humanity. An intelligent, entertaining film. Highly recommended.

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Spectre of Marx

Harpo, Chico and Groucho, that is, more than Karl. Amusing and entertaining through and through, but not the pinnacle of Bunuel, which, in my eyes, is Tristana. But I've only seen 6 or 7 of his films. The extra feature, The Celebration of Chance, is invaluable. Bunuel's works are greatly helped by the commentaries of Jean-Claude Carriere. Carriere remarks that the title is an allusion to Marx. The truth is that the pursuit of liberty (or the idea that it can ever be attained) is, and has to be, illusory; and the movie medium actually accentuates the doomed nature of the search. No matter how much you twist and turn, invert the world, run counter to convention and reverse reality, the prison which fetters human perceptions can never be escaped. This is not exactly new. In fact there is a passage in one of Lewis Carroll's lesser known works, where the crowd shouts something like: Longer hours! Worse pay! Illogic has always had its adherents, and the non-sequitur has been known for centuries. Bunuel enjoyed the freedom in this film to do exactly what he wanted, and in one sense it is an expression of the fact that even with this freedom, to ignore plot, character development, cause and effect, the movie-maker is still constrained --- by something. The wish to produce a work of art, perhaps? Taken to its absurd extreme, the artist would end up in total solitude creating a work which he instantly destroys. The film has to be seen, however, and the one star has only been removed by a personal desire to be perverse. Wonderful cinematography, perfect performances, superb scenes and dialogue.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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