The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
d. Luis Buñuel, 1972
In my opinion the greatest thing Buñuel ever made, 1972's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is truly a surreal masterpiece. It has all of Buñuel's signature aspects, including the matter-of-fact storytelling method, surreal images, and the assumption that the entire movie makes more sense if you think of it as a dream. It follows three rich couples as they find that they are not able to sit down for dinner. Brilliant scene after brilliant scene, Buñuel fights the bourgeois ideals that he was raised under, showing the true hypocrisy of human "progress."
The Phantom of Liberty
d. Luis Buñuel, 1974
Buñuel's most free-form film, this 1974 gem is perhaps his most audacious exercise. The basic structure of the film is that it follows one character through some strange incident where he comes across another character, which now becomes to the story's focal point, and so on until we've come so far from where we've started that all the audience can do is look back and reflect on Buñuel's formal mastery of the medium. Each of the surreal sequence is magnificent, and in each of them Buñuel is again challenging the accepted values of society.
That Obscure Object of Desire
d. Luis Buñuel, 1977
The last film Buñuel ever made, 1977's That Obscure Object of Desire, still showcases his trademark brand of filmmaking. He was almost 80 when he made it, but you wouldn't know it by watching the film, which is so full of intellectual wit and poignant satire that it could just as easily be the first film by an up and coming director. A great examination on the reasons why humans are instinctively drawn to one another, and the perils and charms of being attached to another person. The car blowing up at the beginning of the film could be seen as the summary of Buñuel's savage poetry.
