Load of rubbish!!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Bunuel, an almost mythic filmmaking figure; the man that crafted masterpiece upon masterpiece in a career spanning decades. Among his most famous films are "Un chien andalou", "The Exterminating Angel", "Belle de Jour", and "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", his only Oscar winning effort. The film is made up of a multitude of comical scenes and sketches that follows almost no story arc whatsoever. Whatever plot can be pieced together through hilarious scene after scene is very slim and minor. The film focuses on a group of upper class bourgeois friends whose lives seem to be falling apart in a rather surrealist fashion, particularly whenever they attempt to eat dinner together. This premise works as the set up for various gags and satirical jabs that are bizarre but smart. Bunuel was a genius in terms of both humor and the cinematic art form, and this film was perhaps created at the height of his powers when any possible limits were automatically eliminated within the first few minutes of a Bunuel film. His gift for sharp social satire never ceased to be no matter what age he became, and this film may be the most notable example of such a statement. It is a praised and downright beloved film despite its lack of plot and heavy doses of often experimental surrealism. This is a film that has been wildly acclaimed for one ruling reason; yes, it may be a sharp social critique and a brilliant art-house classic and an essential surrealist work, but it is most importantly genuinely hilarious. This is a COMEDY of the highest (and flat out funniest) degree, despite there being a few tragic and legitimately emotional sequences. Once you have witnessed this comic gem of a film, you may very well have reached the peak of world cinema. This work sits atop the mountain of great films, joining the ranks of masterpieces that range from "Citizen Kane" to "Back to the Future" to "Nashville" to "Satantango", and I'm sure it enjoys their company!

Not only are the lives of the bourgeoisie characters in the film pointless and irrelevant, but the film itself is pointless and irrelevant. To have people astounded by the "brilliance" of the film and the "genius" of Bunuel is to me astounding in itself. While someone like Fellini can entrance, Bunuel might have well produced a film based on alcoholic, drug-addicted ne'er-do-wells that said nothing worthwhile or did nothing worthwhile. A disjointed, badly acted, phony presentation of a group of individuals that are worth nothing yet somehow cunning enough (in the film) to elevate themselves to positions of importance. I found myself asking "What is the point of this film?" and the answer kept coming up "There is no point and the whole production is absurd." Contrived and unrelated dream sequences that go nowhere. Actions by the actors that mean nothing and make no sense in any context. Perhaps because the majority of viewers are in the same category as the actors in the film, they can relate to it. I cannot. There is nothing worthwhile to be taken from this film. If one derives intellectual meaning from such as this, I feel sorry for them.My inner self insisted on adding the following: A knock came on the door of my subconscious. I opened it, and it was a vacuum cleaner salesman who pushed past me and sat down on my couch."Did you have an unhappy childhood?" he asked, and continued without pause: "I did. I used to have a recurring dream where I was walking down a road. Did you eat lunch? It is curious that it is not raining out, is it not?" He then proceeded to begin a one-sided conversation of mechanical engineering from a feminist perspective. Without stopping after he had finished his discourse, he began to relate the mystical aspects of flatulence. Midway through this conversation, he stopped to say "I'm sorry, I have to leave now. I have another appointment. Thank you for your order." And left, leaving the door open.

Finally got around to this in time for its fortieth anniversary and my initial reaction is this charm is a tad subtle so much so that it tends to elude me. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, after all, Bulle Ogier, Fernando Rey, what's not to like. Perhaps it's the sloppiness in the writing that doesn't sit too well with me; whenever there's a situation in search of resolving we just Fade To Black then cut to one of the principals who's dreaming it. Not too much wrong with that - if you're an amateur and this is your first movie but not when you have a track record going back forty years and change. True, there are some nice digs at the Catholic church which I'll drink to any time but it takes more than a handful of harpoons no matter how unerring the aim to make a movie.

The aristocracy met its match in Luis Buñuel, who throughout his career delighted in kicking the legs out from under the hypocrisies and pretensions of the rich and powerful. One of the late director's last and most effective satires was this typically mannered but nonetheless savage attack on society's ultimate villains: the church, the military and, most of all, the idle upper class, seen here frustrated while attempting to indulge in their favorite social ritual: dining out. The film is loosely organized into an elliptical series of surreal (and sometimes unrelated) episodes, in which every chance for a group of wealthy friends to share a simple meal is frustrated by, among other distractions: a funeral, a military training exercise, and finally by a band of terrorists who gun them all down in (appropriately) cold blood. Buñuel's signature wit and dream symbolism is in ample evidence throughout, and his eye for social absurdity was rarely so critical or keen. But maybe the best joke of all in the film is that its intended targets are also the ideal audience for such highbrow humor, laughing alongside Buñuel without even recognizing themselves as the butt of his subtle mockery.