Of all Luis Bunuel's movies, I found that THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY is the funniest of all. The Communist Manifesto was written to offer a positive vision of the views, aims and tendencies of Communists from across Europe. Somehow we must choose a path. The film opens in Toledo during the Napoleonic occupation, as a costume drama involving executions and drunken French soldiers desecrating a church, a statue that comes to … The evidence is never considered as the doctor's nurse interrupts the conversation to tell her employer that she must visit her sick father. Akin to his equally hilarious films The Exterminating Angel and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie , this is a film in which Bunuel flips the world on its head, however, he is not just critiquing the bourgeoisie. Esta película en Dvd, está todo ok muy bien, y sin ningún problema. This page was last edited on 10 December 2020, at 05:14. Her disappearance is reported to the police, the girl is present but none of the adults admit to her presence. The Phantom of Liberty on IMDb; The Phantom of Liberty at AllMovie The Phantom of Liberty (French: Le Fantôme de la liberté) is a 1974 surrealist comedy film by Luis Buñuel, produced by Serge Silberman and starring Adriana Asti, Julien Bertheau and Jean-Claude Brialy. Dvd EL FANTASMA DE LA LIBERTAD de Luis Buñuel. Directed by Luis Buñuel • 1974 • France. Toledo, 1808. The guests are seated around the table on flushing toilets. Luis Buñuel’s recent films are the supreme justification of the politique des auteurs —perhaps the only one. And that my liberty is only a phantom." That same night, some new guests arrive at the hotel: a young man and his aunt. The Phantom of Liberty is straightforwardly surreal and absurd. "Down with freedom!" The nephew returns to his aunt, who is now willing to make love with him. [2], This quote not only parallels the structure of the film but also summarizes Buñuel's philosophy of life. A firing squad executes a small group of Spanish rebels who cry out Down with liberty! Même chose que pour Tristana les indications de langue et sous titrage sont erronés. Even if some things go over one's head, watching it … Toledo, 1808, a Spanish city occupied by French Napoleonic troops. Or if they do, it's to not what the viewer is expecting. This resident is a professor at the police academy. [4] When he was a student in Madrid, he saw a dead woman's hair 'growing' from a tomb in the moonlight. Finally the policeman charged with finding her is given her photograph –and asks if he can take her with him. They offer to use a holy effigy and prayer to assist her sick father, they begin to pray. The nephew is refused by his aunt and leaves his room to join another couple (a hatter and his female assistant) for a drink. I saw his 1974 film THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY for the first time recently, and I immediately fell in love with it. Muchísimas gracias por todo. Indeed, this is a film that comprehensively challenges traditional narrative conventions. A firing squad executes a small group of Spanish rebels who cry out "Long live chains!" The surrealist images range from the profane to the comical, from the absurd to the rational, and from the ambiguous to the idiotic. 1974 NYFF Preview: The Phantom of Liberty. Great Seller - arrived just how advertised. Luis Bunuel was a director whose work spanned decades, countries and styles, yet, throughout, maintained a keen eye for satire and a talent for presenting surreal imagery. The Prefect is taken to his office, where a different man takes his place. Zigzagging across time and space, from the Napoleonic era to the present day, The Phantom of Liberty unfolds as a picaresque, its characters traveling between tableaux in a series of Dadaist non sequiturs. He is arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to death but leaves the courtroom to be treated as a celebrity. The nurse and the four monks are also invited into the hatter's room. The two men treat each other cordially and discuss crowd control as if they are acquainted. Expectations and meaning are kept so far apart, it's almost painful to watch. The captain caresses a statue of Doña Elvira de Castañeda and is knocked unconscious by the statue of her husband, Don Pedro López de Ayala. The soldiers tell her that the road ahead is blocked. Things first began to go wrong, Luis Buñuel teases us, in Spain in 1808, when Napoleon's troops arrived to liberate Toledo. This was based on Buñuel's experience of being told that he had a cyst on his liver (he died of cancer of the liver in 1983). The young nephew has brought his aunt to the hotel for an incestuous affair. Sign in to see videos available to you. Cut to a close-up of a spider and the interior of a bourgeois apartment where a man is "fed up with symmetry" as he rearranges his mantelpiece. Toledo, 1808. The search for truth and the need to abandon the truth as soon as you have found it. Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2014. When we see the images, they are revealed as picture postcards of French architecture. By Richard Roud in the September-October 1974 Issue. Call Phantom of Liberty a determinist film. His other movies; as strange as they maybe, I can derive some satisfaction and appreciation for. Buñuel summarizes many of the concerns that permeate his work: Chance governs all things; necessity, which is far from having the same purity, comes only later. Winning the Oscar and the success of the film gave Buñuel an opportunity create whatever he desired. [10], Coombs, N. (2007) "Studying Surrealist & Fantasy Cinema" pp20-21 Auteur, personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay, Learn how and when to remove this template message, National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Phantom_of_Liberty&oldid=993359508, Films with screenplays by Jean-Claude Carrière, Wikipedia articles needing rewrite from November 2016, Wikipedia articles with style issues from July 2011, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2010, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Je souhaite qu'on me renvoie un produit conforme à mes attentes en VO en l'occurence en français ou au moins sous titrage français! The title of The Phantom of Liberty is also taken from this line of dialogue from his 1969 film The Milky Way: "I experience in every event that my thoughts and my will are not in my power. Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2008. Let it be said in passing that the politique was just that: it was never a theory, only a policy, a hypothesis. Full Review. When he visits the cemetery at night, he finds a telephone in the crypt by his sister's coffin. The Phantom of Liberty was Buñuel's penultimate film. The Criterion Collection has released The Phantom of Liberty as the third title in their Bunuel DVD library, and it's a keeper. The tolling church bells and gunshots from the opening scene of the film are also repeated. I'm told by fellow film enthusiasts that Buñuel's later films do not show this Spanish master at his best, that his earliest films---his famous collaborations with Salvador Dalí, for instance---show an edgier, more fascinating Buñuel. Unbound by the laws of narrative logic, Buñuel lets his surrealist’s id run riot in an exuberant revolt against bourgeois rationality that seems telegraphed directly from his unconscious to the screen. It is not for people who see movies as butterflies, trophies to be netted, pinned down, then pulled apart with tweezers. Well shot with lavish sets and locations, but nobody and nothing seems to go anywhere? After being awarded an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in the previous year (for The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, also with producer Serge Silberman and writer Jean-Claude Carriere), he appears to have regained the creative autonomy of his early films. At bedtime, the husband cannot sleep as he is kept awake by a cockerel, a watch-carrying woman, a postman and an emu wandering through his bedroom. Featuring an elegant soirée with guests seated on toilet bowls, poker-playing monks using religious medals as chips, and police officers looking for a missing girl who is right under their noses… They retire to their room, the elderly aunt confesses that she is a virgin, when the nephew pulls back the sheets to look at her naked body, she has the body of a young woman. The city has been occupied by French Napoleonic troops. They receive a phone call informing them that their daughter has disappeared from school. Other websites. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. It also has nothing to do with the film itself, which is basically a plotless stream of non-sequitur humor which plumbs Buñuel’s trademark surrealist imagery for provocative and profane comedy. Bourgeois convention is demolished in Luis Buñuel’s surrealist gem THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY. The film ends with a close-up shot of an ostrich's head. The Phantom of Liberty is a very loosely connected series of unfinished narratives. Bourgeois convention is demolished in Luis Buñuel’s surrealist gem The Phantom of Liberty. Buñuel outlines the film's themes in his autobiography as being: Buñuel's previous production, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), had won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and his next and final film, That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) was a more conventional narrative. Consequently, Buñuel returned to his accustomed traditions of surrealism and the workings of the subconscious through a cinematic experience that would leave many scratching their heads and applauding simultaneously - The Phantom of Liberty. The nurse drives through a rainy night, meeting a military tank on the road that is apparently hunting foxes. Featuring an elegant soir#e with guests seated at toilet bowls, poker-playing monks using religious medals as chips, and police officers looking for a missing girl who is right under their noses…. But in another, it's arrogant and superfluous to the point of annoyance. The Phantom of Liberty, in essence, is not a single film in the traditional sense, as Buñuel moves away from cinematic convention by breaking the rules of filmmaking. Video availability outside of United States varies. One of the most poignant biographical details used in The Phantom of Liberty is the sequence when the doctor tries to avoid telling his patient that he has cancer of the liver. They sit around the table talking and reliving themselves in a casual fashion. We then follow the man who is sitting next to him to the top of a tower block (the Tour Montparnasse). (27) IMDb 7.9 1 h 43 min 1974 NR. He is dropped off at work where he gives a lecture to a class of delinquent policemen, who behave like schoolchildren, on the subject of the relativism of laws, customs and taboos. "Phantom of Liberty" is definitely one of Bunuel's most personal movies but also one of his most enjoyable. If I have a soft spot for any one of my movies, it would be for The Phantom of Liberty, because it tries to work out just this theme. The two policeman go on duty where they stop a speeding motorist (Mr. Legendre) who is rushing to see his doctor. The city has been occupied by French Napoleonic troops. This film apparently and purposely tries to defeat all that. The Phantom of Liberty is absolutely hysterical, while also being impeccably thought provoking as a surrealist commentary on the world around us. We then cut to the 'dinner' party which is being held in a modern bourgeois apartment. Yet, it's also a strong reflection of most of our everyday lives, trapped in the mundane and banal. Bourgeois convention is demolished in Luis Buñuel’s surrealist gem The Phantom of Liberty. AKA: Il fantasma della libertà, The Specter of Freedom. In revenge, the captain exhumes Doña Elvira's body to find her face has not decomposed; there is a suggestion of intended necrophilia. Bourgeois convention is demolished in Luis Buñuel’s surrealist gem The Phantom of Liberty. [9], Today, reception for The Phantom of Liberty is highly positive. Saludos. The Phantom of Liberty (French: Le Fantôme de la liberté) is a 1974 surrealist comedy film by Luis Buñuel, produced by Serge Silberman and starring Adriana Asti, Julien Bertheau and Jean-Claude Brialy. They politely discuss various issues around the topic of defecation whilst publicly using the toilets that they are sitting on. There's no single correct way to read it, which is not a rationale for its ambiguities, but a rigorous instruction to those who would enjoy all that is most marvelous and poetic in surrealism at its best. It features a non-linear plot structurethat consists of various otherwise unrelated episodes linked only by the movement of certain characters from one situation to another and exhibits Buñuel's typical ribald satirical humor combined with a series of increasingly outlandish and far-fetched incidents intended to challeng… It opens in Toledo, Spain, a city that so impressed the young Buñuel that in 1923 he founded a group called the "Order of Toledo". Time has passed and the monks are playing a game of poker with the nurse and the hotel manager, gambling with holy relics, smoking and drinking alcohol. The Phantom of Liberty moves with great confidence and comfort. or "Death to the gabachos!" Would buy again. It is the cry of a defeated social order. The Phantom of Liberty(French:Le Fantôme de la liberté) is a 1974 film byLuis Buñuel, produced bySerge Silbermanand starringAdriana Asti,Julien BertheauandJean-Claude Brialy. Indeed, this is a film that deals with a variety of transgressive subjects such as fetishism, necrophilia, incest, mass murder, sadomasochism, and pedophilia with a network of storytelling devices and narrative forms and presents an intense criticism against established social institutions. We cut back to the police lecture. Throwing away any semblance of traditional narrative, Bunuel works with film as Magritte and Dali did with paint, using surrealism to cast absurd light on institutions which comprise weird reality. There are implications of child abduction or pedophilia. By turns funny, disturbing, and thought-provoking. It is a complex, paradoxical, subversive and radical film, which has promoted endless debates and encouraged a variety of readings. Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2005. Mr. Legendre is eventually told by his doctor that he has cancer and offered a cigarette, he slaps his doctor and returns home. Exhilarating satirical surrealist show from Luis Buñuel, Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2005. Another vignette is of a little girl who's gone missing - but is right there. The parents are disgusted and yet erotically stimulated by the images. This man is a sniper who randomly kills people in the streets below. The hatter, who is wearing bottomless trousers, proceeds to be masochistically flagellated by his assistant in front of the other guests who are shocked and leave. Being suspicious and offended at things we take for granted, and totally apathetic to the strangeness of the elite and professionals that we look up to and put our faith in. Luis Buñuel began his career filming a short film, Un Chien Andalou (1929), together with Salvador Dali and they agreed on one thing before making the film - the idea that each scene should not reveal anything in regards to rational thought. The Phantom of Liberty - Luis Buñuel - Dinner Scene - YouTube Subscribe to our Facebook page for movie news, trailers, reviews and other interesting posts. The Prefect is about to read a letter explaining how the girl was found, but is interrupted and leaves to visit a bar. The professor continues, using a dinner party at his friends' house to illustrate a point he is making. The Phantom of Liberty. When the Carmelite monk says "If everyone prayed every day to Saint Joseph, peace and quiet would prevail", this was a quote that had stuck with Buñuel when he was visiting a monastery in the 1960s. The opening scene is inspired by "The Kiss", a short story by Spanishpost-romanticistwriterGustavo Adolfo Bécquer. Buñuel and the Surrealists were closely linked to the Communists in the 1930s, but by the 1950s he had developed a greater antipathy towards the party. In this absurdist scene, she is there – the adults are able to see and speak to her – yet they act as if she is missing. The film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film by the U.S. National Board of Review. We now cut to the school where the teachers insist that the little girl has vanished despite the fact that she is physically present. Some Carmelite monks are also staying at the hotel. We follow one of the policemen, who is having his shoes shined. An interesting and daring take in playing with the audience. It likely refers to the illusive nature of freedom, to the ways in which our destinies are controlled by chance, or, as Buñuel would have it: We so often find ourselves at complicated crossroads which lead to other crossroads, to ever more fantastic labyrinths. Nada más. Which I think is the main goal of this movie? The movie can't be pinned down. Featuring an elegant soir#e with guests seated at toilet bowls, poker-playing monks using religious medals as chips, and police officers looking for a missing girl who is right under their noses…. He then receives a phone call from his dead sister, asking him to meet her at the mausoleum. The children arrive home and show the pictures to their parents who are shocked that the girls have such images. That's Bunuel. The parents then let the children keep the pictures and dismiss the nanny. It stars Adriana Asti, Julien Bertheau, Jean-Claude Brialy, Adolfo Celi, Anne-Marie Deschodt, Michael Lonsdale. A voice is heard offscreen crying out "Long live chains!" Featuring an elegant soirée with guests seated on toilet bowls, poker-playing monks using religious medals as chips, and police officers looking for a missing girl who is right under their noses… [citation needed]. Whatever. Writer Gary Indiana notes that the film was written by Buñuel and Carrière "telling each other their dreams every morning."[3]. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), The Phantom of Liberty, and That Obscure Object of Desire—Buñuel’s final three films—are his most uninhibited, and his best-realized.Not every artist has the fortune to hit his highest pitch at the end of a career. As in The Milky Way and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty shifts attention not only from a central character to a minor one, who then becomes central, but also from one time period to another. -a Spanish pejorative term for "Frenchmen"-. The title for “The Phantom of Liberty” is an obscure allusion to Karl Marx and has nothing to do with either the celebrated statue or Lon Chaney. [1] It features a non-linear plot structure that consists of various otherwise unrelated episodes linked only by the movement of certain characters from one situation to another and exhibits Buñuel's typical ribald satirical humor combined with a series of increasingly outlandish and far-fetched incidents intended to challenge the viewer's pre-conceived notions about the stability of social mores and reality. Top subscription boxes – right to your door, © 1996-2021, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Rotten Tomatoes reports an 89% approval among 18 critics, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The Phantom of Liberty is a 1974 French Italian comedy movie directed by Luis Buñuel. The Phantom of Liberty. The title of the film is a homage to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto, specifically a reference to the opening sentence: "A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Communism" (in French, "spectre" is translated as fantôme). This heady, almost off-putting masterwork isn't particularly easy to decipher (maybe we aren't meant to), which is why it's best to approach it as a literal comedy of manners. Starring Michel Piccoli, Jean-Claude Brialy, Monica Vitti. There are those who swear by his more popular 1972 Oscar-winner THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE, but somehow I think THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY is even more entertaining than DISCREET CHARM. The Phantom of Liberty moves with great confidence and comfort. About The Phantom of Liberty This Surrealist film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incidents based on the life of director Luis Buñuel. Buñuel and Carrière spent considerable time together working on the script and were such close and intimate companions that they felt that they could complete one another’s sentences. The opening scene is inspired by "The Kiss", a short story by Spanish post-romanticist writer Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and by Francisco Goya's painting The Third of May 1808. It argues that the only way to live freely (to achieve liberty, so to speak) is to embrace the coincidences of the world not as mysteries but as naturally-occurring phenomenons, the first step in rejecting the stringent moral codes that unnecessarily determined such common behavior as excusing oneself to go to the bathroom.