Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Watching this again, about 5 years after having first seen it, was, sad to say, rather boring, even tedious. Regretfully, after sticking it for three-quarters of the way through, I sped forward to the ending. Nothing was gained, it seemed to me, by having the girl played by two very different actresses, one Spanish, the other French. It highlighted the impersonal unreality of the role, and suggested that the atmosphere of impotence and mockery was all in Rey's mind. The object of his desire did not materially exist, and the flashback in the train was like a bad dream. The pace was strangely slow, although the incidents were varied. Rey seemed to be succumbing to a form of senile decay, unprotected by his wealth. In Bunuel's films the characters walk about a great deal, to and fro. They keep coming and going: the jump-cut is not for him. There's a great deal of striding or strolling along streets, walking up to doors, knocking on them, ringing bells, getting in and out of taxis, or other cars and limousines.The feeling that the story was seriously dated was a perhaps a reflection of its original publication in 1898. The emotional torture experienced by Rey somehow didn't seem relevant to the post-Elvis, post-Beatle world. The explosions that happened from time to time failed to update it. Bunuel made this, his last film, when he was almost 80. It made me feel as if I were 80, and I'm only 79.

There is no Aristotelian middle path for films directed by Luis Buñuel as they are either adored by his admirers or intensely disliked by his detractors. As a film, "That Obscure Object of Desire" might irritate you to a very large extent but it would never bore you. It is the mysterious tale of an old man who would go to any extent to make love to a mysterious young woman. His troubles start when he comes across two women in different forms who are believed to represent the sole woman of his erotic fantasies. Those who have studied psychology might see a reflection of Freudian theory in the film but it is far more simple than what one can expect it to be. It works well as the story of an old man whose very objective in his life is to make love to a beautiful woman. Although the theme of this film might appear as a cruel, bad joke, Jean Claude Carrière-screenwriter and Luis Buñuel ensure that the film discusses all key elements of the time during which it was shot. This is the reason why there is plenty of religion, sex and terrorism in the film.

Luis Bunuel makes challenging films. This is a romance with a twist, two actresses playing the same woman interchangeably. A rich man, Mathieu, and Conchita, a beautiful flamenco dancer and his object of desire are in a volatile relationship from the start.Using flashbacks to explain why Mathieu dumps a bucket of water over Conchita's head while riding on a train; it is a very funny comedy. When he first meets her, she claims to be eighteen, and a virgin. She teases him endlessly and when he finally lures her into bed, she is wearing a corset so tight that he can't remove it, giving him a major case of blue balls. They break up and reunite several times. He sees her dancing nude at a night club, but still takers her back and buys her a house. She locks him out and lets him observe her having sex with another guy. Although she later claims that the sex was fake, he beats her. This causes her to say that he must really love her. When the train stops they leave together, arm in arm. The ending is a big surprise and unexpected. Excellent work from Banuel.

"That Obscure Object Of Desire" is one of the most influential films I have ever seen! I remember liking it very much when I watched it for the first time long ago; but a few days ago I decided to watch it again and found myself completely absorbed in its magnificence and the splendour of suggestive details Bunuel entered into the film. Having two actresses playing the role of Conchita represent two separate moods and even personalities of hers. It is even stressed by the fact that one of them exits the room with one particular hair-style and enters again with her hair made in a different way. The "first Conchita" is French-looking, shy, subtle and demure, always with her head bend down, in an obedient, servant-like manner, whereas the "other Conchita" looks a lot more like a Spaniard, with big beautiful eyes and slightly curly hair, moody and demanding- the dominant side of her personality. There are two more, let's say, surreal details present throughout the film: one of them being the package Mathieu lefts behind at the beginning of the film which appears to be the same as the one out of which the girl in the shop window takes the blood-stained veil, and which supposedly contains a bomb that goes off at the very end; the other detail being the constant terrorist attacks, whether shown directly or by means of radio or newspapers announcements. Apart from the possibility that Conchita herself might belong to a group of terrorists, as her friendship with guys who at one point rob Mathieu suggests, there is also another point of view considering the relationship between Mathieu and Conchita, full of hatred- love/attraction-repulsion tension as some kind of a psychological bomb that would eventually explode. As I was watching this film, I thought it obvious that Conchita doesn't love or even respect Mathieu and that he's been trying, not only to take his money, but also to utterly destroy him, as some kind of a temptress. However, having seen that after gaining the property over the house in Spain as a present from Mathieu, and after ditching him in an abrupt manner, she still seeks him and torments him, I realised that not only he cannot live without her, but she as well possesses some kind of peculiar attachment to him, may it only be to humiliate him or being humiliated or even beaten by him. Therefore, I think there are no grounds upon which the theories that she is only after his money and nothing else might be based. This film conveys the ever-present motif of dualism of human nature, the motif that stretches back to "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" or "Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde", etc. It is also about human obsession with the (possibly) the only thing they cannot possess, representing one's own Holy Grail, in this case, the disputable virginity of the main female character. The film does not tell the viewers all men are swine who only want to physically possess women and nothing else, nor does it tell all women are devils in disguise who trick men into their spider web playing the card of innocence and virginity. It simply tells the story of humanity bound to its needs, fantasies and, above all, frustrations about things beyond their reach. The sick love(?!) story of mutual torment and humiliation, but also of mutual need and dependence upon one another, where the roles of who is the tormentor and who the tormented are not always as clear as they seem.