Merrily, merrily, life is but an absurd dream

I just finished watching a spate of films by Luis Buñuel. That's because I happened to be in the Reine Sofia museum in Madrid and caught a glimpse of the surrealist's famous 1929 film, Un Chien Andalou, which Roger Ebert described as "the most famous short film ever made." It has been awhile since I’d watched anything by Buñuel. So when I got home I immediately clicked on Criterion Channel and watched any film by Buñuel that I had not seen or not seen in a long while. This resulted in viewing The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Belle de Jour (1967), The Phantom of Liberty (1974) and Viridiana (1961). My memory was still fresh enough to remember The Exterminating Angel (1962), which I saw last year. And even though Buñuel's oeuvre is more than that, that was all I could absorb….The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is a comic setup of a group of upper crust couples who continually try to have dinner together but keep failing. Yes, I guess it’s like a dream. And of course, Buñuel being the surrealist that he was, much of his work has to do with dreamlike images and absurdity. It stars one of the greatest suave and debonair actors ever in movies, Fernando Rey - he of the goatee - whose aristocratic bearing is always comically undermined. Rey also stars in Viridiana, which shared the top prize at Cannes and was banned in Buñuel’s native Spain for 17 years. Starring a character as a nun (Silvia Pinal) who becomes corrupted, it's hard to believe (the banning that is). But I guess sensibilities were, well, more sensitive in those days. The nun, who leaves the monastery,  is portrayed in a charitable light but apparently succumbs to temptation. But this is only in the final scene and seems extraordinarily mild. Viridiana reminded me of a Fellini film, with its set pieces of marginal but idiosyncratic characters who here create a beggars' banquet. Belle de Jour has the great Catherine Deneuve as a middle class maven fascinated by the dark side - that is, prostitution. And so she is able to act out her deepest sexual cravings but only from 2 to 5 pm when she has to be home and make dinner. So this film could also be dubbed Love in the Afternoon, though I know another film has that title (Billy Wilder, 1957). The Exterminating Angel is perhaps the most interesting of the films. A dinner party in an opulent mansion has gathered yet there are forebodings of doom. A servant runs off before dinner is served. The guests are fed and everyone is sated. But upon retiring to the parlour our well heeled guests find they cannot cross back into the rest of the house. This state lasts hours then days and the gathering, in tuxes and evening dresses, are reduced to refugees, cutting up furniture to throw in the fireplace to keep warm. Finally, in The Phantom of Liberty, a series of unrelated sketches counter seemingly normal human experiences with the non sensible. A little girl is lost and her parents report to the police. Even though she reappears her presence is discounted because the official search has not concluded. And here is also the famous scene of another dinner party (Buñuel was apparently fascinated by dinner parties)  where our guests sit down at a respectable dining room table, only their chairs are toilets.

Is this Laura Dern? And a seven-year-old gem

While three movies do not a career make - and this actress's career has had much wider and varied  scope - it was still a surprise to watch three more or less supposedly representative films of one of the contemporary film world's leading actresses. They’re featured in a Laura Dern mini retrospective on Criterion Channel. If these are representative of a character who defies stereotypes then "defy" is a misnomer. The first film, Smooth Talk (Joyce Chopra 1985), interestingly enough based on author Joyce Carol Oates's Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?  has Dern as Connie, a 15-year-old wild thing who flirts ferociously with boys at the local mall and irascibily confronts her mother (Mary Kay Place) at every turn. She is, in a word, a typical if gregarious teenager who lacks as much insight into herself as those would-be victimizers. In Rambling Rose (Martha Coolidge 1991), we again see Dern as the outrageous flirt or in a certain parlance, tramp. Set in the 1930’s Dern as Rose has a checkered background and is considered by many a "loose" woman. Her behavior alights the town in the Deep South as scandalous, as she sashays along main street in skimpy clothes to the delights of men and condemnation of women. Finally, in Citizen Ruth (Alexander Payne 1996), Dern plays a young woman 'Ruth' (photo) caught up in the abortion wars. Ruth, a drug addict, is at once fearsome and naive. After getting pregnant she ends up adopted by both sides in the abortion debate. One would think with a title like "Citizen" Ruth would undertake a commanding role of moral rectitude, whatever side that puts her on, but it isn't the case. She’s literally willing to go to the highest bidder (literally a monetary payoff) whether she chooses to have her baby or not. All this being said Dern is a splendid actress in this and the other films but her character is hardly an example to other women on screen or off. Worst of all about Citizen Ruth is its cartoonishness. Burt Reynolds plays a farcical anti-abortion leader arriving with private chauffeur. Tippi Hedren plays his opposite, swooping down in a helicopter to excavate Ruth from the opposing braying hordes. Thankfully, Ruth finds her own way. 

Meanwhile one of the better films I have seen lately is a little known gem from 1953 called Little Fugitive (Raymond Abrashkin, Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin) about seven year old Joey (Richie Andrusco) as a boy lost in Brooklyn who ends up on a summer weekend in Coney island. This film "influenced the French New Wave and is considered by modern-day critics to be a landmark film because of its naturalistic style and groundbreaking use of nonprofessional actors in lead roles,” according to Wikipedia. Who knew? But, whatever else, it’s a charming and realistic story of a kid "on the run" from his boyhood terrors and creating a world of his own amidst summer honky tonk.