The upper-class guests at an after-opera dinner party find themselves making excuses not to leave when the party appears to be over. By morning it is clear that they cannot leave, either due to magic, miracle, curse, or weird psychological state. As days drag by, and thirst, hunger, and sickness engulf them, the guest become more savage moving from petty verbal attacks to assault.
Surrealist Luis Buñuel, perhaps most famous for his 1928 short film Un Chien Andalou (everyone remembers the eye being slit), was having a good decade. Heâd long since shifted into semi-coherent narratives, though it wasnât till the 1960s that he really found his way. His edgy Viridiana (1961) was banned in Spain as blasphemous and contradictory to the political order, but celebrated around the world, pretty much for the same reasons. With The Exterminating Angel, he reduces the personal angle and turns the social satire up to eleven. He jabs at the bourgeoisie, for their emptiness, their lack of empathy, their cruelty, their superstition and religion, their stubbornness and stupidity, and perhaps most of all, their inability to change a system so clearly unfair, or even see that it is. But this is Buñuel, so while heâs saying these people are terrible, he isnât saying they are any worse than anyone elseâall people are terribleâsimply that they are benefiting from a system that assumes they have fine qualities that they lack.
While many of Buñuelâs punches are clear, the overall message is more general and fuzzy, which isnât surprising for a surrealist. The Exterminating Angel isnât a political treatise. It isnât trying to make you think, but rather make you feel, and that feeling is that something is fundamentally wrong, and boy does he succeed. I was left without any idea what to do, but with an overwhelming sensation that something should be done. It would be an uncomfortable film if it wasnât so darkly funny. Buñuel was none-too-keen to have anyone analyze his work. He was concerned (if he was âconcernedâ with anything) about the image. Well, The Exterminating Angel is filled with compelling images, and is a must-see classic.