A few years on since Criterion’s 2012 release of The Exterminating Angel (and my lengthy review), this new Blu-ray upgrade of Luis Buñuel’s 1962 social satire couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. As political climates change and divides deepen across the world, this surreal masterpiece turns the tables on the social classes. Though wealth and standing were not part of Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s infamous horror movie rules in Scream, a deeper examination of the genre, particularly the sort of isolating event they were sending up in their movie, I am sure would reveal that most often, things go bad for the poor, not the rich. Or, when they do, someone from the underclass is there to save the day. The outsider that tagged along with her moneyed classmates for the weekend being the only one to emerge from a slasher plot alive.
Not that The Exterminating Angel is at
all like a slasher film, but it is very much a horror film. Dark forces are in
the air right from the get-go, when the servants of a Mexican dignitary start
exiting his home just before a big dinner party. There is a suggestion that
they are not colluding, that they are not aware of what compels them to go. Did
they enact a curse on their snobby boss and his guests, or are they simply
falling under the same spell? While this strange happening forces them to
leave, it requires the others to stay.
What exactly happened is never explained, nor does it need
to be. The closest we get to maybe being able to surmise the motivation of
whatever force is holding sway is The Exterminating Angel’s
closing scenes. We’ve switched from the wealthy to the pious. Buñuel is
targeting social institutions and ideologies, isolating them so as to expose
and ridicule. His main scenario, borrowing a little from Sartre’s No
Exit, is that following their meal, the partygoers discover they
cannot leave. There is no visible obstacle keeping them in the room, yet they
can’t find the ability to simply walk out. Food disappears, as do other
pleasures; the group splinters, factions form. Stripped of the trappings of
status, these people are left to be themselves--and who they are is not
necessarily very likable.
In a society where the gap between the rich and the poor, as well as
many moral and political divides, is becoming more pronounced than ever, there
is much we can glean from The Exterminating Angel. The film
makes the division real, blocking the rich from the rest of the world, but in
doing so, takes everything away, turning them into the people they might otherwise
judge, forcing them to go without. In added prescience, Buñuel’s turning the
whole thing into a media spectacle is not unlike reality television being a
platform for celebrity, wealth, and now leadership. Though, the gawkers outside
the mansion seem positively quaint in the age of 24-7 surveillance, paparazzi,
and, of course, oversharing.
The critique is sharp, but Buñuel’s approach is often playful. He
watches his characters with the mirth of a prankster. Which, of course, he is.
It’s the director who locked these people in this mansion, and only he can let
them out once he’s seen all he wants to see. They can be craven and petty, but
their desperation is also horribly human. As with the best horror, the awful
things that happen prove to remind us we are alive, and that we are all in this
together. The rich are no better than anyone else, no more capable--but when
they finally do get out, it’s because they push together.
The high-definition transfer on this disc is very nice, bringing
The Exterminating Angel into its Blu period. I don’t believe
this is any different than the transfer used for the previous DVD edition, but
the image is crisp and the uncompressed soundtrack sounds fantastic. All the
extras from the original disc, including a 2008 documentary tribute to Luis
Buñuel, are carried over to this re-release.
The images used in this review are from the standard-definition DVD and not the Blu-ray under examination.
This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.
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