THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE Movie Review
Cet Obscur Objet du Desir
A wealthy, widowed Spanish aristocrat (Fernando Rey) becomes erotically obsessed with his beautiful, seductive new maid, but she refuses to give in to his pleadings. In the hands of master director Luis Buñuel, Pierre Louÿs's often-filmed novel La Femme et le Pantin, becomes a savagely funny portrait of a man endlessly stimulated by his own frustration, like a dog chasing another dog's tail. Fernando Rey gives his usual deadly serious—and therefore hilariously vulnerable—performance, but the real show-stopper of That Obscure Object of Desire is his casting of two different women, Angela Molina and Carole Bouquet, in the single role of the maid, Conchita. It's the closest Buñuel has ever come to using a “gimmick” in one of his films, and you study the movie intensely hoping to see different specific qualities in Conchita when played by one actress as opposed to the other. But Buñuel, the old anarchist, refuses to let us off with an explanation so logical or obvious. Conchita simply is played by a two different actresses, sometimes within the same sequence, and that's that. In the spirit of his prank, Buñuel has given different explanations at different times, telling one interviewer that the talent of Maria Schneider—the Last Tango in Paris star who was originally cast in the part—was such that when she departed he needed two women to replace her. He told others that he simply couldn't bring himself to choose. Regardless, Buñuel's last film is as mischievous, wise, and subversive as his first (Un Chien Andalou); it's reassuring to know that the same questions and paradoxes that delighted him all his life were still nipping at his heels at the end, resulting in one of his most pleasurable entertainments.
NEXT STOP … The Exterminating Angel, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Baby Doll
1977 (R) 100m/C SP Fernando Rey, Carole Bouquet, Angela Mollna, Julien Bertheau; D: Luis Bunuel; W: Luis Bunuel, Jean-Claude Carriere; C: Edmond Richard. Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards ‘77: Best Foreign Film; National Board of Review Awards ‘77: Best Director (Bunuel); National Society of Film Critics Awards ‘77: Best Director (Bunuel); Nominations: Academy Awards ‘77: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Foreign-Language Film. VHS, LV, Letterbox COL