Comedy
In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined.
Directors
Fernando Rey
Don Rafael
Delphine Seyrig
Mme Thevenot
Paul Frankeur
M. Thevenot
Stéphane Audran
Alice Sénéchal
Bulle Ogier
Florence
Jean-Pierre Cassel
M. Sénéchal
Julien Bertheau
Monseigneur Dufour
Claude Piéplu
Le Colonel
Michel Piccoli
Le Ministre
François Maistre
Delecluze
Pierre Maguelon
Le sergent de police
Maxence Mailfort
Traum-Sergeant
Milena Vukotić
Ines
Maria Gabriella Maione
Terroristin
Muni
Bäuerin
Georges Douking
Gärtner
Christian Baltauss
Lt. Hubert de Rochcahin
Bernard Musson
Serveur
Directors
User reviews2
Review
Featured review
It's quite a difficult film to review this, as it essentially has no real plot and very little structure. It is a series of dream sequences following a group of friends - each with some form of skeleton in their closet - as they try to meet for a dinner that repeatedly gets aborted. Fernando Rey is on good form as the Ambassador from the Republic of "Miranda" - a man living in fear for his life from revolutionaries at home, and who is also not averse to adding a little spice to the contents of the diplomatic bag. Jean-Pierre Cassel and Stéphane Audran are the "Sénéchal" couple - they like a bit of al fresco nookie; the "Thévenot" couple (Delphine Seyrig and Paul Frankeur) are ostensibly the most normal of the group, though the latter has a bit going on the side with "Florence" (Bulle Ogier). We are never quite sure why they are friends at all, but none of that really matters. It is the very unstructured nature of this that makes it work. Each of their dreams offers us a different - sometimes amusing, sometimes rather violent - short story as the group try to sit down to eat. Personally, I was rather fond of the gardening Bishop "Dufour" (Julien Bertheau) who seems to flit between his religious and gardening garb as if by magic. The dialogue isn't maybe the best, but the scenarios and a lot of imagination from director Luis Buñuel combine to offer us something that is quirky and entertaining. It doesn't really need a cinema screening - the production and photography are fine but really this is all about some whacky characterisations that don't always make sense, but do engage.
Geronimo196719 Sep, 2022
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Budget
$800,000Gross worldwide
$103,230More to explore
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