The Olympic Films, part 4 of 7: Summer 1976 / 1972 / 1968 & Winter 1972 / 1976 / 1980

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Silent Light (Best of the 21st Century?)

#100 in Best of the 21st Century?, a series in which I view, for the first time, some of the most critically acclaimed films of the previous decade.

Rounding out the top 100, this entry on Silent Light concludes the "Best of the 21st Century?" series begun in February, with The Hurt Locker. If the previous post, on Let the Right One In, was the climax of the series, this is the epilogue. Not a written post but images from the film's quiet, entrancing opening, in which the camera tracks in while the sun rises. Paradoxically, a good sequence to close with. Thanks for following the series, and I hope you enjoyed it. The pictures begin after the jump.

The Exterminating Angel

Just finished watching this movie for the first time. I'd anticipated it for a while, but perhaps I picked an inopportune moment to watch it - I was by and large left cold. Then again, maybe it's not just a matter of mood; I've seen at least a dozen Bunuel films at this point, and while I like some more than others (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, one of my earliest Bunuels, still strikes me as the most amusing and entertaining) I'm not in love with any of them, and the master filmmaker's charms largely allude me. I don't find his work especially disorienting as surrealism, nor do I find his effects particularly shocking - while watching a Bunuel film, scenes pass before me and while I can appreciate the "subversion" on an intellectual level, viscerally I just don't find them very subversive (or are they supposed to be subverting my sense of subversion?).

I love the premise of Exterminating Angel - that a dinner party of snobbish and catty sophisticates find themselves trapped in a drawing room, apparently by their own lethargy; weeks pass as they starve, sweat, stink, and go mad, yet they can't bring themselves to leave. I found individual images and fleeting moments striking: the severed hand that leaps and darts through the darkened room (only to change into a woman's hand with a sharp cut when the sequence is revealed as a hallucination), the sheep passing through the mansion's grand entrance as Bunuel's camera gracefully tracks them (animal moments tend to be highlights of Bunuel films for me: another favorite is the random emu in the otherwise unimpressive-to-me Phantom of Liberty). And Silvia Pinal was captivating, especially in her final, desperate speech to the bourgeois prisoners.

Yes, writing about these moments makes me like them, and by extension the film, all the more - so why then, while watching, do I feel apathetic and antsy? I think I'm astute enough to recognize there's something there I'm not quite getting, but for whatever reason I just tend to find Bunuel's films underwhelming. I wonder, do they grow with re-viewing? I believe I've seen most only once. Anyone else share a similar reaction? I respect Bunuel, and in the abstract I can admire the work, but a fair amount of the time I feel just like the guests in this movie, trapped in a room I can't get out of.

This post was originally published on The Sun's Not Yellow.