The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

PG

Released Sep 15, 1972

1h 40m

Comedy

List

98%

60 Reviews

Tomatometer

88%

10,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

The ambassador of the Latin American republic of Miranda (Fernando Rey), M. Thevenot (Paul Frankeur), his wife Simone (Delphine Seyrig) and her sister Florence (Bulle Ogier) arrive for a dinner party at the house of Alice Sénéchal (Stéphane Audran) and her husband Henri (Jean-Pierre Cassel), only to learn that they were mistaken about the date. In director Luis Buñuel's surreal fantasy, the six bourgeois friends repeatedly gather for a dinner that never quite arrives.

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Critics Consensus

An intoxicating dose of the director's signature surrealist style, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie represents Buñuel at his most accessible.

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Pauline Kael

New Yorker

The charm of the film is that the old magician can show off his skills and make fun of them at the same time... There is nothing else in the movie -- just the surprises, and the pleasures of [Buñuel] dexterity as he springs them.

Sep 28, 2023

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Kevin Maher

Times (UK)

... Simultaneously darkly satirical, bleak, witty and lightly amusing.

Rated: 4/5

Sep 9, 2022

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David Denby

The Atlantic

Bunuel’s art is as insolent as ever. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is a deeply funny movie, as a viewing experience it’s like walking across a perilous, sway little bridge whose guide rails periodically snatched away.

Jun 21, 2022

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Brian Susbielles

InSession Film

Surrealist satire attacking the upper classes for their sexual morals, attraction to social status, and detachment from reality...

Mar 2, 2023

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Dennis Harvey

48 Hills

Discreet Charm is a deadpan farce forever flirting with anarchy.

Sep 12, 2022

Full Review

Neely Swanson

Easy Reader (California)

Absurdity is piled onto absurdity and reality and surreality blend until it is impossible to tell which is which.

Jul 27, 2022

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Leaburn O

I haven't a clue what any of it means but it was an entertaining ride throughout. After trying to track this one down for a while, I got lucky and found it on YouTube but unsure how long it will be up there.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/17/24

Full Review

Alexsander F

Primeiro filme que assisto de Buñuel, e o longa segue à mesma pegada dos filmes do Fellini, apesar de manter certa coerência em alguns momentos. E para à época era um filme dito "subversivo", por ridicularizar de maneira discreta à burguesia e certos costumes daquele tempo. Mas é um grande filme que recomendo a todos. Belíssimas atuações, fiquei encantado principalmente com as três atrizes principais que remontam exatamente como era à beleza daquela época.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

11/01/23

Full Review

Matthew B

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is more technically accomplished than earlier Buñuel films. In place of the static camerawork of most Buñuel movies, here was a film that used zooms and travelling shots, something of a first for the director. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is about as accessible as Buñuel gets. The title may be confusing to those who understand Buñuel's concerns. Is he going soft on the bourgeoisie and admitting they have a discreet charm? Certainly some film reviewers I see online think that Buñuel is barely attacking the bourgeoisie at all in this film. I think he is, but I will return to that later. My thought is that the title carries one or two subtle meanings. The charm is discreet because there is so little of it that you can barely see it, perhaps. Charm could also be used in the sense of an enchantment. Buñuel's characters are trapped in a peculiar situation where they can never achieve fulfilment of a simple object. Often Buñuel films contain characters who suffer from frustrated or unfulfilled hopes and desires, be it altruism (Viridiana) or lust (That Obscure Object of Desire). This time the baulked desire is a simple one. The six main characters (there is little to distinguish between them except that one is an ambassador to an unknown country, and one is an alcoholic sister) want to eat a meal. This situation is a reversal of the one that Buñuel employed in The Exterminating Angel. In that earlier film, his characters attended a party, but found that for some inexplicable reason none of them could leave the house. On this occasion, the characters keep turning up for a constantly deferred dinner party. They have time to think about what they would like to eat and hear tantalising descriptions of the food that they will never taste, but the evening always gives way to bewilderment and frustration, and they leave on an empty stomach. Whereas no explanations are offered for the phenomenon in The Exterminating Angel, there is always an explanation for the failed dinner parties in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. These reasons begin with a simple error, followed by a farcical situation suitable for a bedroom comedy, and grow increasingly dark and surreal as the film moves along. The bourgeoisie in the film are affluent, arrogant, entitled and self-centred. Poor people barely register in this world except as servants or objects of patronage. Behind their façade of respectability lurk the familiar animal passions held by the rest of us, but hidden for hypocritical reasons. In this film, the well-to-do characters would rather conceal their secret appetites than deny them. It never occurs to the sex-crazed host and hostess that they should refrain from having sex while there are guests – their only concern is that they should not be heard. A dead proprietor elicits no compassion in them for someone they once knew – only discomfort at eating in the same place where his body lies. The Ambassador is annoyed by an insult to his country, not because it is untrue but because it is said aloud. Throughout the film we see examples of greed, lust, cowardice, infidelity and criminal behaviour perpetrated by our protagonists, all without a sense of shame. Buñuel neatly captures this in an image towards the end of the movie. The Ambassador is hiding under the dinner table fearing for his life at the hands of terrorists. Nonetheless he cannot help betraying himself by reaching a hand out from under the table to grab a piece of meat. Here the dinner party is the perfect medium for humiliating Buñuel's targets. A dinner party is an ordinary event that follows established rituals and routines. Dinner occupies an important place in the lives of the bourgeoisie. They like eating out, and they like talking about eating out. Sometimes it is the only thing they can find in common to talk about. By frustrating the bourgeoisie in their pursuit of this most typical of their pursuits, Buñuel is able to mock and undermine them. Their usual poise and confidence is eroded as they are subjected to the kind of indignities from which their lives are normally sheltered. Nonetheless we must be wary about over-interpreting the meaning of a Buñuel film. The Discreet Charm is not a satire about the bourgeoisie. It is a film that takes time to satirise the ruling classes, but it is not really about anything. There is no fixed message here, only a series of surreal images that seem to come from the unconscious mind, rather than from a carefully designed plot that has been worked out in advance. Dreams dominate the action, and it is possible that the whole film is a dream. Buñuel liked to put his own dreams into movies, and The Discreet Charm is no exception. Characters frequently stop the action in the film to tell one another about dreams they had. There are also teasing loose ends – dreams that are mentioned but not related, and explanations for events that are offered, but which we never get to hear. The boundary between dreams and reality is uncertain. Buñuel employs no filters or distorted camera effects to tell us when someone is having a dream. Every so often a character wakes up. On one occasion, someone has a dream within their dream. Buñuel recognised that our dreams do look like reality. There is no way for the dreamer to tell that they are asleep and that something is not really happening, and the action in the film feels that way too. Some of the action in the film that supposedly takes place for real is so bizarre that it might as well be a dream. The Ambassador is involved in smuggling drugs, and he also finds time to grab a gun and take pot-shots at the toy dogs being sold outside his window by a pretty young woman who is apparently a terrorist. There is little point in trying to make too much sense of these events. One could puzzle oneself for hours trying to interpret The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie in a symbolic or allegorical manner, or by trying to tie all these elements together into a coherent message. This would be a waste of time. Buñuel's films do have certain running themes and concerns, but they are never about these themes and concerns. Those motifs slide in subtly while the film continues in free-form. Buñuel was an atheist, but if he was in Heaven watching us expending a good deal of time seeking a tidy meaning in his films, he would be looking down on us laughing. I wrote a longer appreciation of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie on my blog page if you are interested in reading more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2021/01/02/the-discreet-charm-of-the-bourgeoisie-1972/

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

08/23/23

Full Review

Shioka O

Nonsense satire. Bored. Maybe I just couldn't get the French wit... Luis Buñuel has done a lot and this is one of them. I prefer his earlier works.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/26/23

Full Review

Massoud H

This is one of the most important and hilarious films of all time.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

12/30/22

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Lise T

98% ? Why on earth were 2% deducted???

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

11/20/22

Full Review

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Luis Buñuel

Director

Fernando Rey

Don Rafael

Delphine Seyrig

Mme Thevenot

Stéphane Audran

Alice Senechal (as Stephane Audran)

Jean-Pierre Cassel

M. Senechal

Paul Frankeur

M. Thevenot

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Synopsis

The ambassador of the Latin American republic of Miranda (Fernando Rey), M. Thevenot (Paul Frankeur), his wife Simone (Delphine Seyrig) and her sister Florence (Bulle Ogier) arrive for a dinner party at the house of Alice Sénéchal (Stéphane Audran) and her husband Henri (Jean-Pierre Cassel), only to learn that they were mistaken about the date. In director Luis Buñuel's surreal fantasy, the six bourgeois friends repeatedly gather for a dinner that never quite arrives.

Director: Luis Buñuel
Screenwriter: Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière
Distributor: Criterion Collection, 20th Century Fox, Media Home Entertainment, Rialto Pictures, Applause Video
Production Co: Dean Film, Jet Films S.A., Greenwich Film Productions
Rating: PG
Genre: Comedy
Original Language: French (Canada)
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 15, 1972, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Oct 8, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $82.5K
Runtime: 1h 40m
Sound Mix: Mono

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