The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

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Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie
original movie poster
Directed by	Luis Buñuel
Produced by	Serge Silberman
Written by	Luis Buñuel Jean-Claude Carrière
Starring	Fernando Rey Paul Frankeur Delphine Seyrig
Cinematography	Edmond Richard
Editing by	Hélène Plemiannikov
Release date(s)	September 15, 1972 October 22, 1972
Running time	102 min
Language	French and Spanish
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (French: Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie) is a 1972 surrealist film written and directed by Luis Buñuel, a Spanish-born filmmaker associated with the Surrealist movement. The film was made in France and uses the French language, although a few lines are in Spanish.

The film has been described as "a complex, shifting, virtually plotless web of dreams within dreams within dreams",^[1] and focuses on a group of upper middle-class people attempting (despite constant interruptions) to have a meal together. The film received the 1972 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Contents 1 Content 2 Principal cast 3 Notes 4 External links

[edit] Content

The film consists of a number of connected scenes: five gatherings of a group of bourgeois friends, and four dreams that are dreamt by different characters. The beginning of the film focuses more on the gatherings, while the latter part focuses more on the dreams, but both types of scene are intermixed with each other. There are also scenes involving other subject matter, such as one focusing on a terrorist girl. The film does not portray a logical world: the bizarre events are accepted by the characters, even if they are impossible or contradictory with something else.

The film begins with a bourgeois couple, the Thevenots, arriving at the home of the friends the Senechals, who are supposed to be hosting a dinner party. But the Senechals say the supper was planned for the next day. 'But that is impossible', says Mme Thevenot, 'I couldn’t have accepted, tomorrow I’m busy'. In the next sequence, Mme Senechal is invited to dine out, but she has to change. Finally arriving at the restaurant, the Senechals finds it locked. They knock and they are invited in, but the owners have changed, there are no other diners and the prices are cheap. Furthermore, the manager died that afternoon and the wake has been set in the dining room since the undertaker has not yet arrived. Of course, the bourgeois leave.

Various other aborted dinners ensue, with interruptions including the arrival of an army of soldiers in the dining room, or the relevation that a restaurant is in fact a stage set in a theatrical performance. The film finally ends, when one of the characters wakes up in bed and raids the refigerator, hungrily biting into a chunk of meat.

[edit] Principal cast

• Fernando Rey
• Paul Frankeur
• Delphine Seyrig
• Bulle Ogier
• Stéphane Audran
• Jean-Pierre Cassel
• Julien Bertheau
• Milena Vukotic
• Maria Gabriella Maione
• Claude Piéplu
• Marguerite Muni
• Pierre Maguelon
• François Maistre
• Michel Piccoli

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Michael Brooke, 'Plot Summary for Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie', The Internet Movie Database, accessed 15 November, 2006.

[edit] External links

• Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Le at the Internet Movie Database
• Criterion Collection essay by Carlos Fuentes
• Criterion Collection essay by Luis Bunuel
• Roger Ebert's review of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
• The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie at Rotten Tomatoes

Preceded by The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 1972

Succeeded by Day for Night