Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

Ten years after El ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel), Buñuel presented another ensemble film with a first-class cast: The brilliant and playful members of the core team, consisting of Delphine Seyrig, Bulle Ogier, Fernando Rey, Paul Frankeur, Stéphane Audran, and Jean-Pierre Cassel playing members of the Parisian haute bourgeoisie, are relentlessly prevented from having dinner together by dealing diplomats, vindictive priests, and pot-smoking soldiers in disturbing sub-plots. What begins as a grotesque farce evolves into a cascade of increasingly bloodthirsty nightmares, with the line between the sophisticated reality of the lives of the members of the group brought together by fate and their delusional infernos slowly beginning to blur.  (mg)