This could quite possibly be my favorite Buñuel film. The Exterminating Angel is opposite of Los olivados in P.O.V., but carries the same indictment on Mexican society, with both films showing how poverty can be a dehumanizing experience to all caught in its web. Those who are born into poverty tend to handle it better, though. The rich squirm. Watch the rich squirm.
From Tom Cabin at Filmcritic:
The early 1960s were a real raw deal for Luis Buñuel. After a bungled job at the Museum of Modern Art (due partly to Salvador Dali outing him as a Commie and an atheist) and years shilling for Hollywood as a dub artist, the Spanish-born filmmaker made his way to Mexico and settled into the film industry there for a solid two decades. In 1961, he returned to Spain, after years in exile, in the hopes of making films in his native land. The first film he made upon his return, Viridiana, caused an uproar both in the upper tiers of Mexican society and the Vatican. Despite being awarded the Palme d'Or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival, the film wouldn't be screened in Mexico until 1977 when Buñuel headed back there to continue his work.
The first film he made upon his return was The Exterminating Angel, and whatever hope the bourgeoisie had of the artist getting off their back was vanquished. Set almost solely in the music room of a Mexico City mansion, the film concerns a pack of upper-class theater-goers who, after a dinner party, find themselves inexplicably trapped inside the small room for no apparent reason. The doors are open, they just can't muster the will to pass through the portals. The host (Enrique Rambal) and a doctor (Augusto Benedico) try to keep everything civil, but soon enough it turns into something both Todorov and William Golding could relate to. A young couple, overwhelmed by sexual frustration and Catholic guilt, commit suicide in the closet while the eldest guest just up and dies. The party fills the sterling vases with their excrement and bouts of hallucinations begin while everyone talks of murdering the host in the hopes that it will free them from whatever is holding them in.
Unlike Viridiana, The Exterminating Angel wears its bitterness and outrage on its sleeve. Poking ribs with a machete, Buñuel casts the upper class as a pack of savages who quickly discard common reasoning and patience the minute they are stuck with one another for longer than one night. There is a particularly vicious bit concerning a pair of incestuous siblings, the brother half of which is the most indefensible character in Buñuel's burnt-black comedy. All the while, the director makes a point of showing the inability of any human to cross the front gates to rescue the contemptible lot, though sheep and a bear roam freely around inside and outside the house. By the time the Valkyrie (Silvia Pinal) finds the mystical key to unlocking their fate, they have all but resorted to cannibalism, which seems not too far off the horizon.
Though not as daring as Viridiana and not quite the headtrip its follow-up, the 45-minute Simon of the Desert, came to be, The Exterminating Angel remains a tough-minded, barbed satire with all the surrealist trimmings, including a dream that pits one of the inmates against a roving, severed hand. Though the group finally escapes the mansion, Buñuel is neither conclusive nor optimistic. In the film's damning coda, the filmmaker flagrantly sends another flock of sheep to the ravenous masses, refusing to allow the hope of social rehabilitation to stand for longer than a few minutes.
When the film premiered publicly in New York in 1967, four years after it opened the very first New York Film Festival, Bosley Crowther blamed its lack of distribution on the fact that 'the ennui and frustration, so purposely conveyed, creep into the patience of the audience as fast as they suffuse the characters.' A little over 40 years after its legitimate release and 26 years after Buñuel's death, the nasty bugger still gets under your skin, but it is now clear that Buñuel wanted nothing more than for a public to sit and watch these captives suffer while they themselves are also stuck in a room, transfixed by a force that, to this day, still can't be completely comprehended.
Disc 1 Technical Information:
Title: El ángel exterminador/The Exterminating Angel
Year: 1962
Country: Mexico
Director: Luis Buñuel
Source: DVD9 Retail
DVD Format: NTSC
Container: .iso + mds
Size: 6.02 GB
Length: 1:33:11
Programs used: ImgBurn
Resolution: 720x480
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Video: MPEG2 @ ~8200 kb/s
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
Audio: Spanish- Dolby AC3 Mono @ 384 kb/s
Subtitles: English
Menu: Yes
Video: Untouched
DVD Extras: Theatrical trailer
The Exterminating Angel Megaupload Links
Disc 2 Technical Information:
Title: The Exterminating Angel- Disc Two: The Supplements
Year: 2006/2008
Country: N/A
Director: N/A
Source: DVD9 Retail
DVD Format: NTSC
Container: .iso + mds
Size: 5.98 GB
Length: N/A
Programs used: ImgBurn
Resolution: 720x480
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Video: MPEG2 @ ~6800 kb/s
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
Audio: Spanish- Dolby AC3 Mono @ 192 kb/s
Subtitles: English
Menu: Yes
Video: Untouched
DVD Extras:
- The Last Script: Remembering Luis Buñuel
- Interview with Silvia Pinal
- Interview with Arturo Ripstein
Disc Two: The Supplements Megaupload Links
