Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

I love anything surreal. "Surreal" means anything that's really, REALLY out of the ordinary; things that could only happen in a dream. And boy-ee-oh-boy, does Discreet Charm have surrealness!

One of the funniest things about the movie is that shocking things keep happening (somebody gets shot), then someone wakes up as if they were only dreaming. What gets really bizarre is that people keep waking up on top of each other, and then recalling that they dreamt that someone else was only dreaming. Pretty soon you're not sure what's a dream and what's reality anymore. It doesn't really matter, though; the whole movie's just messed up anyway (in a good way).

The basic plot in Discreet Charm is that no matter how hard they try, a group of people just cannot sit down and have a good meal. They try to go to a restaurant, but it turns out the owner's dead in the next room. They sit down to eat once, but the food is fake and it turns out they're on a stage in front of a live audience (one of the men at the table panics, saying to himself, "I can't remember my lines!"). One of my favorites is when three of the ladies are about to eat at a cafe, when out of nowhere and for no reason a soldier comes up to the ladies and asks if he can tell them a story. He tells this really awful, creepy revenge story about his dying mother's corpse and how she persuaded him to kill his father (we see all this in flashback). After the story, the soldier thanks the ladies and simply excuses himself, but he's done his purpose; it's pretty hard to eat after hearing a gross tale like that! Later in the movie, he's asked to tell another dream he had which makes absolutely no sense but is fascinating anyway.

The film ends with a scene that's been shown throughout the movie in various times: the group of people are walking down a long highway in the middle of nowhere, looking content but yet kinda confused. There's some really deep social commentary in here, I know it. Something about society's goofiness and manners; they think they're good people. but all these guys really care about is getting something to eat. They look so lost and puzzled, but don't seem to care as they go walking.

"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeiouse" is an amazing movie. I give it my highest rating. Go see it with some deep, artsy friends and then drive home talking about deep stuff.


Amaze the bourgeois!   November 25, 2005
Igor Biryukov (New Haven, CT)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

If he were alive, Luis Bunuel would have been amused to find out that one of Moscow's popular cafes was named after this film. It is not surprising because the Russians enjoy abstract, modernistic ideas (Marxism was one), or at least used to. The oddball cinema is a conduit to transmit these ideas into unsuspecting minds. Amaze the bourgeois; overturn conventionality for effect was Luis Bunuel's goal. But the director was talented enough to go beyond that. The movie is a hypnotic tale of strange situations (quite without a plot) where characters exist in a dream-like state - all with compulsive urges to entertain themselves. The blatant self-indulgence is the only action. This mode of society, Bunuel hints, doesn't offer a chance of salvation, or as the Buddhist would say, no escape from the circle of Samsara. To me, the movie has a hint of a critique of our western way, as if it coming from someone who is not grounded in the Christian paradigm, or coming from the East. Bunuel had in fact rejected official Christianity and made a mockery of it. He was a Spaniard who was shocked and disgusted by ultra-conservative Catholic prelates cozying up with Spanish fascists in the 1930s, even though his friend Salvador Dali had played with the fascist ideas. Bunuel anti-fascism (and anti-imperialism) is perhaps the explanation why the Russians honor him (and so do the Mexicans). The thing to understand about Luis Bunuel is that he, behind the surrealist facade, was a prankster and a joker. His film-making was a series of practical jokes - he liked to be messing up with the minds of his viewers. To be vaccinated with a shot of Bunuel's counterculture in the age of the Disney cinema is probably not the worst thing. Also, the extra documentary DVD is quite good.


Viewers Vary On This One   January 21, 2001
carol irvin (chesterland, OH United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Although Im giving this 5 stars, I must warn you that some viewers are not going to be taken with this film. This is because the film is surreal, absurdist and doesn't follow traditional notions of plot and character development. It resembles a great piece of abstract modern art. If you don't like any of those adjectives, you probably are not going to like this movie. If you do like those adjectives, you probably will love this movie. The plot is pretty much held together by a dinner party which is always trying to come off but sidesteps instead into one surreal, absurdist, right-brain world setup after another. For those who wonder where film has left to go as an art form, this film may answer their question. There is one scene, which I can never forget in here, which reverses the public and private fuctions of eating. I have never been able to get this scene out of my mind!