A Weird Surrealist and Metaphoric Movie, Criticizing the Behavior of the Bourgeois Class

9/10
Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
27 October 2003

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A group of bourgeois friends are trapped in a house after a dinner party. Some type of mysterious force does not allow them to leave a room. There, a few days later, their social behavior masks fall down, revealing persons very selfish, rottenness, confessions about their friendship and a 'bad smell': most of them stinks. They survive, through the sacrifice of some lambs, and in the end, everything and everybody returns to the same initial position and they leave the place.

The first time I watched this intriguing movie was in 1973, when I was a teenager. Since then, I have watched at least four more times. Now I had the chance to buy a DVD recently released in Brazil (again from the great Brazilian distributor Versátil). This time, I had the chance to see a spectacular restored photography in black & white, with wonderful shadows. There are many points in this metaphoric tale that I still do not understand, but this movie exerts some type of spell on me that makes me love it.

For example, I have not understood the title yet: why the exterminator angel? However, the essence of the story, with the hypocrite bourgeois class trapped in their world, changing positions without leaving their social class, sacrificing lambs to survive and in the end coming back to the same initial position in the world, is very clear to me. An unforgettable movie, but not recommended for all the audiences. My vote is nine.