22nd Feb 2015 ; Luis Bunuel's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL

THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL

A film by Luis Bunuel

1962/ Mexico / 93 minutes

22nd Feb 2015; 5.45pm / Perks Mini Theater

The dinner guests arrive twice. They ascend the stairs and walk through the wide doorway, and then they arrive again--the same guests, seen from a higher camera angle. This is a joke and soon we will understand the punch line: The guests, having so thoroughly arrived, are incapable of leaving.

Luis Bunuel's "The Exterminating Angel" (1962) is a macabre comedy, a mordant view of human nature that suggests we harbor savage instincts and unspeakable secrets. Take a group of prosperous dinner guests and pen them up long enough, he suggests, and they'll turn on one another like rats in an overpopulation study.

Bunuel begins with small, alarming portents. The cook and the servants suddenly put on their coats and escape, just as the dinner guests are arriving. The hostess is furious; she planned an after-dinner entertainment involving a bear and two sheep. Now it will have to be canceled. It is typical of Bunuel that such surrealistic touches are dropped in without comment.

By setting up a plot where wealthy people become captives, Bunuel is creating an environment reminiscent of a concentration camp to draw a parallel between literal captivity and the societal trappings associated with social roles among the wealthy.  It is interesting to see that the answer to set themselves free derives from their ability to think their way back to how the past led to this point.

On poetic and literate level, The Exterminating Angel is masterful, well paced and brilliant at establishing suspense despite the absence of a hard reason to explain why the guests are unable to leave the home.  The acting is flawless, as nothing less than great acting is required to immerse us in a situation that clearly doesn’t make sense at first.  The tone of the film is serious but it carries a high degree of black comedy.

(Source: Internet)

LUIS BUNUEL

The father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of the film medium, Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education (which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive behavior), and subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the university there, where his close friends included Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca. 

After moving to Paris, with financial assistance from his mother and creative assistance from Dalí, he made his first film, the 17-minute Un Chien Andalou (1929), in 1929, and immediately catapulted himself into film history.The following year, he made his first feature, the scabrous witty and violent L'Age d'Or (1930), which mercilessly attacked the church and the middle classes, themes that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career. 

Moving to Mexico in the late 1940s he made Los Olvidados (1950), winning him the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1961, General Franco, anxious to be seen to be supporting Spanish culture invited Buñuel. In Sapin Bunuel  made Viridiana (1961), which was banned in Spain on the grounds of blasphemy, though it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. 

With writer Jean-Claude Carrière he made seven extraordinary late masterpieces, starting with Diary of a Chambermaid (1964). After saying that every one of his films from Belle de Jour (1967) onwards would be his last, he finally kept his promise with That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), after which he wrote a memorable (if factually dubious) autobiography, in which he said he'd be happy to burn all the prints of all his films

Breaker Morant

A film by Bruce Beresford

1980/ Australia / 107 mins / Col

5.45 pm; 15th Feb ; Perks Mini Theater

http://konangalfilmsociety.blogspot.com/

When war breaks out in 1899 between Great Britain and the Boers (African settlers of Dutch heritage), a number of Australians volunteer to serve in the British army. In the heat of battle, a group of Boer prisoners and a German missionary are killed by an Australian unit, and three men – including Lieutenant Harry "Breaker" Morant (Woodward) – are court-martialed for murder, to placate both the Germans and the Boers, who may be ready to make peace.

The film is impressively and seductively structured, built around the court martial and employing flashbacks to gradually reveal the truth or otherwise of witness statements. An instant engagement with the characters is helped in part by their status as prisoners and victims of the system, brought home by the bumbling inexperience of their assigned defense lawyer, Major J.F. Thomas (Jack Thompson).

One of the high points in Australian cinema, Beresford's devastating film accurately depicts the injustice visited upon these three "colonials" by their British commanders.  "Morant" is also a magnificent character study. Thompson is terrific as the lawyer who defends the men, but Woodward's resonant, heart-rending performance in the title role is reason enough to see this stunning film.

 

Handsomely directed, brilliantly edited by William Anderson (four times winner of the AFI award for Best Achievement in Editing, including for this film), it pulls off that rare trick of telling a dramatically compelling true story without ever wandering that far from the facts, right up to the emotionally stunning (and accurate) ending.

Breaker Morant remains to this day one of the shining examples of the New Australian Cinema of the late 70s and early 80s, a beautifully executed and performed tale of injustice in an unjust world, and one that, as nations continue to do battle and place young men in positions of potentially abusive power then play politics with the results, is as relevant as it ever was.

Bruce Beresford

Bruce Beresford was born in Australia and graduated from Sydney University in 1962. He served as Film Officer for the British Film Institute Production Board from 1966-1971 and as a Film Advisor to the Arts Council of Great Britain.  Beresford returned to Australia in 1970 to make his first feature film, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, and spent the next 10 years working in Australia's developing film industry. He established his reputation as one of Australia's best directors with a series of notable films in the 1970s, including Don's Party, The Getting of Wisdom, The Club and Breaker Morant.

Following the critical success of Breaker Morant (widely regarded as a classic of Australian cinema) Beresford moved to Hollywood. His first film made in the US was Tender Mercies in 1984. He also directed Driving Miss Daisy which won the Academy Award in 1989, and Black Robe, considered one of the best of his later films. In 1995, his film Silent Fall was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival.

After what might fairly be called a lean patch in his career, at least in comparison with his earlier output, the 2009 film, Mao's Last Dancer broke records at the Australian box office and won numerous film-festival honors.  In addition to films, Bruce Beresford has also directed several operas and theatre productions.