Milena Vukotic

Milena Vukotic

Milena Vukotic Quick Links

Film RSS

The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie Review


Essential
From the moment his 16-minute Surrealist dirty bomb Un Chien andalou was dropped on an unsuspecting Paris in 1929 until the time of his death in Mexico in 1983, director Luis Buñuel patiently and gleefully held court as cinema's most steadfast, outspoken, and off-handedly inflammatory enemy of "polite" society. He built a career on his contempt for unexamined social mores and the gluttonous, self-righteous civic and religious leaders who perpetuated them, and he wasn't just fooling around. As a representative attack, consider this sequence from his 1930 feature L'Âge d'or: We're informed by intertitle that over the course of a long weekend in a locked mountain chateau, a group of depraved rapists and murderers have been having their way with a bevy of adolescent male and female virgins, whom they then torture and kill. The scene is based on the same Marquis de Sade material that served as the basis for Pier Paolo Pasolini's unconscionable Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom, the difference being that here Buñuel has thoughtfully included Jesus Christ among the deviants. He is even seen to drag an injured, escaping girl off screen, the assumption being, when she doesn't return, that He has finished her off. Was Paris burning? No, but once word of L'Âge d'or got around, you may rest assured that some of her theaters were.

Buñuel's cheerful blasphemy was, as you can imagine, shocking, but his commitment to relaying narrative through free-associative, non-linear images - his commitment, that is, to the Surrealist creed that raged among Parisian artists - was seen by many to be as grave an affront. Audiences grew hostile, it seems, when, in Buñuel's films, livestock lounged about in the beds of debutantes or miffed gamekeepers shot and killed children to blow off steam. Buñuel, who was a Spaniard, suffered a more concrete hardship when Fascists took power in Madrid in 1938; he eventually settled in Mexico in 1946, returning to Spain in 1961 where General Franco banned his first new film, Viridiana, just as hurriedly as the jury at Cannes awarded it the Palme d'or. And so Buñuel relocated to France, now in his 60s, and at an age when most directors have retired or have long since begun recycling their own material, he entered one of the most fertile periods enjoyed by any filmmaker anywhere. There are masterpieces scattered among Buñuel's French films like confetti, but in his 1972 comedy The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, one of cinema's most brilliant directors made the most brilliant film of his career.

Continue reading: The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie Review

Milena Vukotic

Milena Vukotic Quick Links

Film RSS

Occupation

Actor


Suggested

Leisure Festival - Dreamland in Margate

Leisure Festival - Dreamland in Margate

On the same day that Glastonbury welcomed back Margate's adopted sons, The Libertines, Margate itself put on it's very own Leisure Festival as it...

Pretty Fierce talk to us about collaborating with Doja Cat, emetophobia, arena tours and staying

Pretty Fierce talk to us about collaborating with Doja Cat, emetophobia, arena tours and staying "true to yourself" [EXCLUSIVE]

Sheffield's very own all girl group Pretty Fierce are still on a high after the recent release of their debut single - 'Ready For Me'.

Will Varley & Jack Valero - The Astor Theatre Deal Live Review

Will Varley & Jack Valero - The Astor Theatre Deal Live Review

Three nights before the end of his current tour Will Varley returned to his home town of Deal to delight a sold out crowd in The Astor Theatre.

WYSE talks to us about her

WYSE talks to us about her "form of synaesthesia", collaborating with Radiohead's Thom York and the prospect of touring with a band [EXCLUSIVE]

With only a few days to go before Portsmouth based songstress and producer WYSE releases her new single, 'Belladonna', we caught up with her to find...

Advertisement
Bay Bryan talks to us about being a

Bay Bryan talks to us about being a "wee queer ginger", singing with Laura Marling and being inspired by Matilda [EXCLUSIVE]

Colorado raised, Glasgow educated and Manchester based Bay Bryan is nothing if not a multi-talented, multi-faceted artist performing as both...

Keelan X talks to us about staying true to

Keelan X talks to us about staying true to "your creative vision", collaborating with Giorgio Moroder and being "a yoga nut" [EXCLUSIVE]

Former Marigolds band member Keelan Cunningham has rediscovered his love of music with his new solo project Keelan X.

Luke De-Sciscio talks to us about having the courage to be yourself, forgiving that which is outside of one's control and following whims [EXCLUSIVE]

Luke De-Sciscio talks to us about having the courage to be yourself, forgiving that which is outside of one's control and following whims [EXCLUSIVE]

Wiltshire singer-songwriter Luke De Sciscio, formally known as Folk Boy, is set to release is latest album - 'The Banquet' via AntiFragile Music on...

Annie Elise talks to us about the challenges a female producer has to face and

Annie Elise talks to us about the challenges a female producer has to face and "going through a year of grief and sickness" [EXCLUSIVE]

Electronic music pioneer and producer Annie Elise says that the release of her first EP - 'Breathe In, Breathe Out' feels "both vulnerable and...

Advertisement

Milena Vukotic Movies

Artists
Actors
    Filmmakers
      Artists
      Bands
        Musicians
          Artists
          Celebrities
             
              Artists
              Interviews