In "The Phantom of Liberty" you get only what the title says: illusions of freedom that can be scary, strange, humorous and unusual just like phantoms; and the only liberty presented here is the one created, written and directed by its genius Luis Buñuel. Everything is surreal like in most of his works, the viewers need to be open minded all the time and accept everything that it's on the screen to fully appreciate the masterpiece presented in your front.
There's no destination, no endings to the numerous characters presented, and to some might not have sense at all. We are introduced to characters that experience dangerous, strange, funny experiences that makes them all free of society impositions, moral structure and other restraining things. The transitions between the stories and figures is one of the most original and interesting ever presented in a motion picture of all time; first we see one character and his story, someone appears with him and from that point we start to follow the other intrusive character and this presentations goes on and on until the abrupt closure.
Figures like a eccentric hatter (Michael Lonsdale) that invites four monks, a woman and a teenage to his hotel room where he is dominated and spanked by his woman in a S&M fetish; a strange doctor (Adolfo Celi) that keeps saying that his patient (Jean Rochefort) is perfectly fine to later tell him that he has cancer, and offering a cigarette in the following moment; this other man and his wife trying to find out the disappearance of the daughter at school but she's right in front of them (terrific joke that in the hands of another director could be ignored, or don't have any sense of humor); these and other bizarre figures are among the figures and situations showed in a harmonic combination of humor and surrealism, yet with a serious intensity that allows to watch the film without looking for answers, or that tempestuous anxiety of finding a message in it. It makes you interested simply because the director tried to make miscellaneous vignettes of absurd situations that begins like an ordinary story, then to become a weird, funny and different story than anything that you ever seen in films.
If you enjoyed or were intrigued by "Belle du Jour", "The Exterminating Angel", "Un Chien Andalou" or "L'Age Dor" and other Buñuel works this is a great challenge for you. It's very unconventional like his other pictures but it offers more than just being a different film. It makes you ask how genius can a man be by doing such an artistic and plausible statement on the strange side of the human condition that knows how to get attention from the viewers. No other director succeed it so well in doing all of this than Buñuel. 10/10
There's no destination, no endings to the numerous characters presented, and to some might not have sense at all. We are introduced to characters that experience dangerous, strange, funny experiences that makes them all free of society impositions, moral structure and other restraining things. The transitions between the stories and figures is one of the most original and interesting ever presented in a motion picture of all time; first we see one character and his story, someone appears with him and from that point we start to follow the other intrusive character and this presentations goes on and on until the abrupt closure.
Figures like a eccentric hatter (Michael Lonsdale) that invites four monks, a woman and a teenage to his hotel room where he is dominated and spanked by his woman in a S&M fetish; a strange doctor (Adolfo Celi) that keeps saying that his patient (Jean Rochefort) is perfectly fine to later tell him that he has cancer, and offering a cigarette in the following moment; this other man and his wife trying to find out the disappearance of the daughter at school but she's right in front of them (terrific joke that in the hands of another director could be ignored, or don't have any sense of humor); these and other bizarre figures are among the figures and situations showed in a harmonic combination of humor and surrealism, yet with a serious intensity that allows to watch the film without looking for answers, or that tempestuous anxiety of finding a message in it. It makes you interested simply because the director tried to make miscellaneous vignettes of absurd situations that begins like an ordinary story, then to become a weird, funny and different story than anything that you ever seen in films.
If you enjoyed or were intrigued by "Belle du Jour", "The Exterminating Angel", "Un Chien Andalou" or "L'Age Dor" and other Buñuel works this is a great challenge for you. It's very unconventional like his other pictures but it offers more than just being a different film. It makes you ask how genius can a man be by doing such an artistic and plausible statement on the strange side of the human condition that knows how to get attention from the viewers. No other director succeed it so well in doing all of this than Buñuel. 10/10