Quell'oscuro oggetto del desiderio

Buñuel's "That Obscure Object of Desire" dripped with substance and stunned me throughout the entire film. The masterful working of the two women into the role of Conchita was wonderful. I do not believe Buñuel for a second when he claims that he intended to use one actress, but she quit unexpectedly after shooting several critical scenes. If it is true, it is one of the more miraculous accidents in film right up there with Casablanca and The Third Man. I can be certain that he consciously gave the different Conchita's different personalities and modes of behavior. That comes across as being the focal point of the movie, turning a mediocre "one actress" film into an engaging event. If I had to put my money on something, I'd say that Buñuel is pulling some Andy Kaufman trickery here... the film worked too well with the so-called "change of plans." Or... if you have enough monkeys on typewriters, you'll get the Great American Novel. I don't believe this was chance at all. 10/10.

First I would like to clarify the issue of the two actresses playing the same character, Conchita. Bunuel initially worked with Maria Schneider (Last tango in Paris) for the title role. In the course of shooting the film Maria Schneider quit; her reasons were that she could not understand, and therefor portray, the character as was requested by Bunuel. This honesty is to this actress' credit. Then Bunuel took the full logic of the character, Conchita, as a bi-faceted character indeed, sometimes cool and calm and serene (played by the quietly beautiful Carole Bouquet) and on other times sensuous and hot and lustful (played by the fiery beauty Angela Molena).

Now what can one say about this masterpiece of a film? It is the eternal story of man chasing woman, to satisfy his earthly desires, and the woman who is sometimes romantic, sometimes wild, always passionate and self-conscious, driving the man mad, humiliating him and toying with him, then again satisfying his ego and deepest fantasies and even truly loving him. Freud knew it all along. Man and woman are surrounded by inexplicable events, absurd, surreal, strange as life can be. And their game goes on. In the course of the film Bunuel "winks" and reminds us of his eternal dislikes of the "bourgeoisie" -here in the form of an upper class rich and corrupt diplomat- who are genuinely so keen on etiquette and good manners, as evidenced by the rat that appears on the main character's dish ! and also the director's dislike of the church establishment and supposedly "devout" people as evidenced by the hypocrisy of Conchita's mother practically selling her daughter. It's a superb film, summarizing the eternal relationship between man and woman, amid normal extra-ordinary events, with top class actors under the directorship of Bunuel the genius.

Pierre Louys 's novel had already transferred thrice to the screen:by Jacques de Baroncelli in 1928,Von Sternberg in 1935 ( "Devil is a woman" starring Marlene Dietrich) and finally Julien Duvivier (1958,starring Brigitte Bardot).

When Bunuel takes a book ,he always makes it his very own :see for instance what he did with "Robinson Crusoe" !So his permanent features are present here even if personally ,I think that "cet obscur..." is the weakest of his latter days works.But even when Bunuel is not at his best,he's better than most of the rest .

Like the bourgeois in "discreet charm of the bourgeoisie" are searching for a good meal which ,in spite of their dough,they can never get,Rey is on fire:he covets a woman ,he wants to have sex with her but something happens every time he is about to assuage his passion.Besides,in order to puzzle his pitiful hero,Bunuel uses two different actresses:Carole Bouquet's character belongs to the perverse young girls with a Madonna face ,recalling Deneuve's Tristana or Severine ("Belle de jour" )whereas Angela Molina is the sensuous bitchy woman (Djin (Simone Signoret)in "la mort en ce jardin" ;Pedro's mother in "los olvidados").

Religion had always been Bunuel's bête noire :here he works ,so to speak,on a large scale(the terrorists kill in the name of the Jesus baby !) and on a smaller one (Conchita's mother ,a military man's(!) widow, goes to church every day but she is not afraid of making a prostitute of her daughter .)

The strange gathering on the train recalls that scene in "phantom of liberty "where the guests at the inn meet in a room in the middle of the night to chat,which Milena Vukotic's presence reinforces (she's featured in the two movies).

And ,last by not least,Bunuel's final opus includes a tribute to Lumière's "l'arroseur arrosé" (1895).Quoting the pioneers of cinema,what a wonderful way to say goodbye!

The story is told by Mathieu (played by the excellent Fernando Rey) to a group of strange people in a train carriage compartment. He is a wealthy man who meets a beautiful young woman named Conchita. They begin to see each other often, and Mathieu's desire for her grows stronger. Conchita is poor and lives with her mother in a small flat. Mathieu gives them a lot of money, but mistakenly tries to buy Conchita away from her mother. Conchita is played by two beautiful actresses, but strange as it may seem, this doesn't effect the film negatively. Sometimes when one version of Conchita walks through a door the other figure enters the next room. But this unique style does work.

Conchita teases Mathieu throughout the film and comes across as a manipulative vixen. Also, there is a group of terrorists bombing buildings and cars throughout the film. A strange sack is carried around and seen several times, too. These are the mysterious things Buñuel likes to add to his films. You also get the feeling that Buñuel knew this was going to be his last film with the ending, which is perfectly abrupt.

Luis Buñuel is still concerned with chastity and sexual morality. In 'obscur' he concludes a trinity in my opinion (after 'fantôme' and 'discret') and his career as a director. These three films represent roughly the films he made in b/w: 'fantôme' represents the surrealism and random dreams of his first films, 'discret' represents his critical anticlericism and anti-bourgeois denouncement and 'cet obscur objet du désir' represents a number of films in which Buñuel expresses his concerns about sexual morality (Tristana, Belle de jour, Journal d'une femme de chambre). The great Fernando Rey (French Connection, Tristana, Viridiana, Campanadas a medianoche) and the great cinematographer Edmond Richard (Campanadas a medianoche '65, le Procès '63, Fantôme liberté '74, Charme discret '72) complement Buñuel's intriguing techniques. Even the cover of the video (a stitched mouth) complements the preceding two (a statue of liberty with a limp torch, a mouth with two legs and a hat). Unfortunately 'obscur' is not as startling and inventive as many of Buñuel's other films: it's not one of his best, but still very worthy.

A man (Fernando Rey) step in a train, throws a bucket of water over a woman and tells his surrounding passengers (a professor in psychology, a judge, a child and her mother, who inquire because they're eager to hear the sordid details) about how he met Conchita (former maid, Carola Bouquet/Ángela Molina) and tried to win her by paying her's and her mother's bills. This bourgeois man thinks he can buy her love and her mother's help (like buying furniture, or like trapping a mouse with a mouse-trap). Those are the premises for a moralistic but incredibly subtle story (not a farce) about subversiveness. There is no music in the film, apart from the end scene and some flamenco source music. I do appreciate a film that doesn't need music to emphasize emotions. That was one of Buñuel's many virtues.

The mysterious actress Muni appears several times. But really strange are the two actresses playing the same woman. They probably represent the two Conchitas: one rational and very careful not to get trapped (wearing an iron maiden and a white handbag), the other with temperament, attracted to Mathieu but devious and deceitful (with a black handbag just one second after carrying the white one). In Mathieu's mind Conchita was a hypocrit (Rey: 'You will appreciate that she deserved the chastisement'). Or is it only the same woman in the mind of Mathieu? Are the two Conchitas representing Mathieu's constantly changing mind? Or did something happen to one of the actresses on the set so that Buñuel had to finish shooting with another actress? Later that day Conchita carries a brown handbag, after having thrown a bucket of water over Mathieu she must have made some message clear to him, uniting the former two handbags in one (?) and uniting the two Conchitas in one? Their relationship explodes eventually. I'm wondering how that emerged from the novel by Pierre Louÿs: writer of 'La femme et le pantin' (1958).

8/10