That Obscure Object of Desire - Criterion Collection

Description

Luis Buñuel's final film explodes with eroticism, bringing full circle the director's lifelong preoccupation with the darker side of desire. Buñuel regular Fernando Rey plays Mathieu, an urbane widower, tortured by his lust for the elusive Conchita. With subversive flare, Buñuel uses two different actresses in the lead- Carole Bouquet, a sophisticated French beauty, and Angela Molina, a Spanish coquette. Drawn from Pierre Louÿs' 1898 novel, "La Femme et le Pantin," That Obscure Object of Desire is a dizzying game of sexual politics punctuated by a terror that harkens back to Buñuel's brilliant surrealistic beginnings.

Customer Reviews:

No fool like an old fool.......2007-04-11

Carole Bouquet is the thinner Conchita who is somewhat severe. Angela Molina is the one who dances and seems more natural.

Jean-Claude Carriere wrote the script. He may be the greatest screenwriter of all time. He has over a hundred credits and some of them are among the best movies ever made. Here's a brief list from those that I have seen: The Ogre (1996), Valmont (1989), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Diary of a Chambermaid (1964).

There's some symbolism in Cet obscur objet du desir. Sometimes Mathieu (Fernando Rey) carries around an old gunny sack. We find out what's in it in the final scene. It represents Conchita's virginity. The terrorists in the background seem rather contemporary although this movie is from 1977. Mathieu is rich and therefore represents the established European society. Conchita and her friends represent the underclass. Both Mathieu and Conchita are really character types. He is the masher, the rake who is always working on a new conquest, although he is somewhat naive. She is the tease who uses her wiles to get what she can from him. Bunuel plays this ancient theme as a burlesque, exaggerating her coyness and his foolishness. The ending may suggest that in some way he has won, or more likely that they are still at a standoff, even while the terrorists escalate the bombings.

The question of why there are two actresses playing Conchita has more to do with Maria Schneider, who originally was cast in the role, but left because of the nudity or because Conchita's character was too contrary, than it has to do with any plot or symbolic necessity. On the other hand, since she is that "obscure object of desire" (which really should be that "unobtainable object of desire"), and because Bunuel wanted to emphasize that Mathieu's desire for her had nothing to do with her personally, he used two actresses and made it clear that Mathieu didn't notice the difference! A bit of absurdity here, but Bunuel is comfortable with absurdity.

All in all an interesting treatment of an ancient theme, but not one of Bunuel's best, even though it was his last at age 77.

Smack me, won't you?.......2006-10-08

This is a very well made film. The director is excellent. The only complaint I have is with the ending. The relationship between the two leading characters isn't clarified enough.

Is the young woman sincere in her affection for her older man? Yes. No. Yes. Definitely not, she's just playing him for what she can get, and is in love with a younger man. No wait, yes she loves him. Wait, hold on, why is she walking away?

The older man is annoying, an odd hero in that we don't want him to get what he wants, we want him to fail, because he is rich, stuck up, without redeeming social value.

The young girl tells him that he knows nothing about women. It seems that what she really wants is to be dominated and smacked. But no, maybe that's not what she wants. Well, yes, it seems that is what she wants.

Interspersed in all this comic ambiguity, we are treated to random acts of terrorism. Blooey! Another rich pig dead. When will it be our hero's turn to be the dead rich pig? At the end of the movie, maybe? He sure is made uncomfortable by the reports of terrorism. It seems that terrorism is the natural reaction, by the mobilized lower class, to the entrenched and despicable upper class.

This film is very French. It has enough quality in its manufacture to get five stars, but it fizzles away at the very end, leaving me wondering just what the hell was happening with our loving couple's relationship before it was time to bring down the curtain on them.

Smack me, won't you? I've given you every reason to. Oww. Good, now I know you love me.

Disgusting and pointless........2006-03-19

"Listen, Bunuel. What are we going to do? The witch has quit. Says: too much nudity. Who does she think she is - Mother Theresa?"

"I am a little busy, JP (Quiet, babe! Can't you see? I am talking to my producer here!). Just get another broad for the role: anybody, only with a good front."

"But, Maestro! We'd have to re-shoot half of the movie. Fernando's already talking of another engagement. In any event, with his rate if we use him again, it will be twenty years before we see any money from this flick. We might as well scrap the whole thing."

"Don't worry, JP. We'll keep shooting as if nothing happened. That's what being Great Director all about. They are suckers, or why do you think anyone would pay cash to see such garbage. Most won't even notice that the face is different, and those who do, will find a good explanation for it. Subliminal, surreal, existential, women are alike - all that nonsense, you know. Relax and have a drink."

Sexual Infatuation amidst a World gone Mad.......2006-02-18

A rich gentleman becomes infatuated with his beautiful maid - Conchita - and pursues her all over Europe. Her ploy is to tease him relentlessly without giving in, and he cannot accept being rejected...so the chase continues and continues. . Meanwhile, Europe is swept into disaster through acts of terrorism from both the far right and the far left - orchestrated by the Revolutionary Army of Jesus Christ. But these real events seem irrelevant in the man's obsession with his own passions.

I simply did not buy Bunel's attempt to switch the women actresses between two individuals. First of all Carole Bouquet is stunning in this film - one of the most gorgeous females alive - so her double always appears pale beside her.

In conclusion, there are far superior films about a man's relenteless obsession with a beautiful woman. In drama I would select "Of Human Bondage". In comedy, "Iris Blonde."

2 Chicks, 1 Fernando Rey.......2005-11-01

Belle D' Jour introduced me to Luis Bunuel. Now TOOOD continues this dark exploration of the European psyche. The women are innocent and vixen at once. Perhaps that is why Bunuel used two women to play the same part. I must say he almost got away with it seamlessly for my "lovely one" swore it was the same woman, but I got it by the time the flamingo nude scene appears. We were also shocked by the caresses of the chest scene, which in commercial film is rare today although in the late sixties, seventies, and part of the eighties, the obligatory nude love scene on American screens were mandatory. That's gone. Now we have blood splattering gratuitous violence.

My only objection to this film is the insertion of cheesy terrorist scenes. I don't know if these silly explosions, the unrealistic destruction of automobiles were limited by budget constraints, or if this was a campy outing of those funny terrorists we have come to know so well over the last forty years.

The desperate Fernando Rey, the older, richer, still amorous, over-the-hill desires his eighteen-year-old Conchita and the game begins. An old story stroked for the amusement of the audience.

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