“That Obscure Object of Desire” (1977)
A wicked, devilish and surrealist look at the ravenousness of longing, lust and passion, Luis Buñuel’s “That Obscure Object of Desire” is his ultimate picture and arguably one of his best — a culmination of a lifetime of obsessions rolled into one. Told in flashback and set against the backdrop of a terrorist insurgency in Spain, ‘Obscure Object’ centers on an aging Spanish man (Fernando Rey) who falls in love with and obsessively attempts to win the affections of an aloof, unattainable 19-year-old chambermaid. Played by two different women (Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina), this unattainable beauty repeatedly frustrates this man’s romantic and sexual desires with a teasing back and forth that might drive any lover mad (indeed, sexual humiliation of the old and privileged seemed to be a central theme and one has to wonder in his old age if Bunuel was something of a masochist). Ostensibly a representation of the girl’s two disparate personalities (both Bouquet and Molina demonstrate two different types of behavior), it’s perhaps simply too facile to box in Buñuel like this, as the picture has its sly satirical elements and indictments of bourgeois society, as is per his usual. Buñuel’s 30th and final picture, the film earned him two Oscar nominations (Best Foreign Language Film and Best Adapted Screenplay), capping off a terrific and provocative career.
There’s even more to discover from Bunuel: 1960’s English language “The Young One” — his second and last American film; “El (This Strange Passion),” another tale of a May/December romance and obsession; “Death in the Garden,” starring the beautiful Simone Signoret, about a motley crew group of travelers who flee to the jungle after a revolution breaks out in a South American mining town; the absurd and scathing vignettes/loosely linked comedic episodes of “The Phantom of Liberty“; and “Nazarín,” about a priest who leaves his order and decides to go on a pilgrimage. Complete with the filmmaker’s disdain for organized religion, the latter picture won the little-awarded “International Prize” at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959. – with Oli Lyttelton and Diana Drumm
