Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The Valkyrie's Soft Shoe

The Exterminating Angel (1962)
directed by Luis Buñuel
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

What's great about Buñuel is that he hated rock n' roll but still makes Simon of the Desert's rock club purgatory seem like nothing short of a good-time revelation. Simon, the desert aesthete, is far more at ease with a cigarette in his mouth and a cocktail in his hand than he is healing supplicants from the top of his lonely pillar. In The Exterminating Angel, servants who escape the home of their wealthy, trapped employers dress up for a night on the town, and check back in only when the liquor they've stolen is almost gone. Some of them probably get shot down in the mêlée that brings the picture to a close - nothing like federales gone wild with machine guns to encapsulate the absurdity of it all - but not before they, like us, have enjoyed a few moments of silence while the bishops and bourgeoisie are locked in the cathedral.