The Phantom of Liberty

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</TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="591" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="587"><div> Jean-Claude Brialy</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="587"><div> Monica Vitti</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="587"><div> Michel Piccoli</div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> Master of surrealism Luis Bunuel in his next to last film offered up a smorgasbord of caustic comical absurdity.  Unfolding in a series of largely unrelated episodes, each one turns the expected upside down or inside out.  Before moving to present day Paris, the "spectre" of liberty (a more accurate translation of Bunuel's intent) is represented by a scene from Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808.  Amid shouts of "Down with Freedom!" soldiers are using a church as a barracks.  When one of the soldiers begins to desecrate the statue of a praying maiden, the stone statue of a knight kneeling next to her bops him on the head.  </div> <bR> <div> Moving to the present, an affluent couple, (Monica Vitti and Jean Claude Brialy) discharge the nursemaid after their young daughter is given naughty pictures by a strange man while under her care.  The offending postcards are revealed to be photos of the Eiffel Tower and other monuments of Paris.  That night Brialy has a waking dream that moves smoothly, if absurdly, to the next setting.  He visits his doctor the next day seeking to make sense of the strange dream. The examination is interrupted by the nurse, who must leave immediately for a family emergency.  Her adventure enroute forms the next bizarre act in this playful irreverent procession.</div> <bR> <div> Describing these and other events in the elliptical series of vignettes is to diminish their impact.  They are connected only by the thinnest of threads.  For example, a man sits at a shoe shine stand in the chair next to a policeman who has just been chided for dirty shoes.  The man departs<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Symbol" >-</FONT>with shined shoes<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Symbol" >-</FONT>to begin a killing spree with a high powered rifle from the window of a skyscraper. The sniper is brought to trial, convicted and sentenced.  He then leaves the courtroom a free man who has become a celebrity sought by autograph seekers.  The random chance, which Bunuel believed rules all things, is bitingly depicted with a playful but unyielding glare of truth.</div> <bR> <div> To say that Bunuel continued in <I>The Phantom of Liberty </I>his career-long penchant for displaying contempt for absurd hypocrisy, including his favorite target, the Catholic Church, is obvious.  What was less obvious at the time of its initial release in 1974, to mixed reviews, was just how very comical the film is as evidenced by how well it holds up. Perhaps I just see different things now, but almost 30 years later, this time around I found it not only filled with trenchant social comment, but laugh out loud funny as well.  Maybe I've learned not to take the world quite so seriously. </div> <bR> <div> It is inadequate to give synopses of the scenarios to convey the sum and substance of the film.  Bunuel's gift for the visual begs to be seen. An ensemble cast boasts not only Vitti and Brialy, but also Michel Piccoli, as an inexplicable duplicate police commissioner out to squash a riot by the animals at the zoo, and Michael Lonsdale, as a hat salesman who likes an audience for his masochism. The famous scene at a party depicts guests who gather to sit on toilets, chat and read magazines. They then discretely excuse themselves and go down the hall to the small cubicle of a dining room to perform the very private function of eating. This remains a most interesting comment about the reasons for social convention. </div> <bR> <div> The title was somewhat confusing and lost something in the translation, as Bunuel's intent was closer to meaning the sense of being haunted by the idea of freedom or liberty.  Unavailable for many years, it is circulating in select venues, in flawless new prints. </div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="2" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="598" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 20 WIDTH="588"><div> Shelley Cameron <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Symbol" >Ó</FONT> 2003</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="588"><div> <A HREF="mailto:shlcameron@aol.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:shlcameron@aol.com"><U><U>Shelley@reelmoviecritic.com</U></U></A></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="501" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="495"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="19" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="495" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>