Disturbing Dark Dangerous Satire

10/10
Author: mockturtle from New York
28 December 2002

I am not going to go into much specifics except to say that this is one of the darkest and most disturbing films I have seen. I would certainly in that way rank it alongside David Lynch's "Eraserhead," Werner Herzog's "Even Dwarfs Started Small," Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," and more recently Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch Drunk Love."

Each of these films is funny in a way, some hilariously, all subversively. I also must say, not to the detriment of the film necessarily, that this is one of the most irritating films I've seen. Bunuel truly gets under the skin of what gets under our skin: inane quirks, selfish boors, groupthinkers. The most disturbing imagery in the film suggests christian parallels with many of the guests praying or vowing to do good works if released, a butler that studied with jesuits and a final service in a church, as well as several lambs (often representations, as in Blake, of Jesus).

Possible also are references to Passover's "exterminating" angel of death, as a brick thrown through a window is at first attributed "some passing Jew." I will not presume to interpret these, and I probably could not do so convincingly if I tried, and, much like with Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive, I don't really want them interpreted for me. This is the wonder of Bunuel. "Cinema is anarchistic" is a probable misquote of him, but from the time of his last film no filmmakers except those above have been able to capture the feeling while watching a film that ANYTHING can happen, and very quickly, and how very frightening that is.

The other reason I write is that the VHS of this film is ATROCIOUS. The best part is where one guest babbles on for about 10 seconds, none of which is shown in the subtitles AT ALL. Most of them are difficult to read as they are against a white background, the quality is true crap. "Diary of a Chambermaid" is a fine film but this is the one that truly needs to be seen as it was intended.