Luis Bunuel Boxset [DVD]

Description

Collection of seven films by Spanish film-maker Luis Buñuel. In 'The Diary of a Chambermaid' (1964) Jeanne Moreau stars as Celestine, a beautiful and sharp-witted young maid from Paris who arrives to work on the rural Normandy estate of the wealthy Monsieur Rabour (Jean Ozenne). It's not long before Celestine clashes with her supervisor Joseph (Georges Géret), who rules the servants with intimidation and colludes with his bourgeois employers to serve his own interests. In 'Belle De Jour' (1967) bored doctor's wife Séverine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve) hears of a brothel operating near her home and, struck by a sudden desire, goes there to offer her services in the afternoons. While there she encounters a wide range of characters, only to eventually run into trouble with a gangster and a friend of her husband. 'Tristana' (1970) follows a young devout woman who goes to live with her male guardian after her mother's death. His intentions towards her are clearly more than fatherly, however, leading to an enforced marriage and Tristana (Deneuve) eventually fleeing to Madrid, where she falls in love with a young artist. Years later, afflicted with a life-threatening illness, she plots revenge against the man who had stripped her of her innocence. In 'The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie' (1972) well-to-do couple the Thévenots (Paul Frankeur and Delphine Seyrig) accompany friends Rafael Acosta (Fernando Rey) and Florence (Bulle Ogier) to the house of Henri and Alice Sénéchal (Jean-Pierre Cassel and Stéphane Audran), who are hosting a dinner party. So begins a series of increasingly bizarre episodes and surreal dream sequences as the diners, over the course of the following days, find themselves repeatedly frustrated in their attempts at eating out. In 'That Obscure Object of Desire' (1977), Mathieu (Rey), a widowed French businessman, becomes obsessed with a Spanish girl named Conchita (Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina). She claims to feel the same for him but nevertheless continually frustrates the realisation of his desire. 'The Phantom of Liberty' (1974) begins with a man who falls in love with a statue during the Napoleonic wars and then moves to the modern day, where we meet a man distributing pornographic postcards, a young girl who has disappeared but who nevertheless helps the police as they prepare to search for her, and a group of dinner party guests who sit on toilets around a large dining table and then politely excuse themselves when they need to go outside and eat. Finally, 'The Milky Way' (1969) follows two tramps as they undertake a pilgrimage from Paris to Compostello, Spain. Along the way they meet a prostitute (Seyrig), the Devil (Pierre Clémenti), the Virgin Mary (Edith Scob), the Marquis de Sade (Michel Piccoli) and Jesus (Bernard Verley). Review: Le seul coffret à prix abordables qui regroupe la période française de Bunuel est un import anglais ! Pour les cinéphiles qui ne connaîtraient pas ces films, précipitez-vous car ces œuvres sont un must sans équivalent dans le cinéma français ! Bunuel les a réalisés avec la complicité de Jean-Claude Carrière au scénario, ce qui confère à la plupart de ces œuvres, cette touche si délicieusement surréaliste et décalée. L'avantage avec les DVD anglais, c'est qu'ils appartiennent à la même zone que la France et que - s'agissant de films français - nous public français pouvons les visionner sans soucis de compatibilité avec nos lecteurs et de langue. Seul bémol : la qualité de l'image du film "Tristana" notamment, est très très en deçà de ce que l'on est en droit d'exiger s'agissant d'un DVD. Mais à l'heure où j'écris ces lignes, c'est le seul moyen pour un spectateur français de découvrir ce beau et terrible film (pour l'instant, seul un blu-ray américain existe, sans langue française me semble-t-il). Review: In the world of Bunuel nothing is predictable and out of the banal comes an unexpected and hilarious noir perception of the world ... Truly ... 'A Slipping Glimpser' ... dream and reality merge ... in these tales of the incongruence in our bourgeois materialistic world ... All these movies are film making of the highest order and totally intriguing and compelling ... and as a box set represent excellent value for money ... ( however if you are actually are a surrealist ... money should never ever be a main concern in life ! ) ... the prints are bit soft soft and wobbly but I remember seeing the movies years ago .. and they were always a bit like that ... there is the advantage of English subtitles if your French is rusty ... These are wonderful memorable masterworks superbly acted by great stars and bear repeated viewing and analysis ... highly recommended