Luis Buñuel’s culi­nary send-up of the upper class is more rel­e­vant than ever

Luis Buñuel’s The Dis­creet Charm Of The Bour­geoisie opens with the ambas­sador Rafael Acos­ta (Fer­nan­do Rey), his col­league François Thévenot (Paul Frankeur), François’ wife Simone (Del­phine Seyrig) and younger sis­ter Flo­rence (Bulle Ogi­er) being dri­ven one night by Rafael’s chauf­feur to an opu­lent house in the coun­try. There they are expect­ing to dine with anoth­er col­league Hen­ri Sénéchal (Jean-Pierre Cas­sel, father of Vin­cent) and his wife Alice (Stéphane Audran) – only they have come on the wrong night.

For, owing to a mix-up, they are expect­ed the fol­low­ing evening, there is no din­ner ready for them, and their host Hen­ri is not even at home. So the four head off with Alice (still in her night­gown) to a near­by bistro, only to find that the own­er has recent­ly died and his body is still laid out in an adjoin­ing room where the staff are mourn­ing him. The imme­di­a­cy of this memen­to mori puts the five off their food, and so they leave once again with­out a meal.

This absur­dist open­ing sequence lays out sev­er­al key themes of The Dis­creet Charm Of The Bour­geoisie. For the casu­al rude­ness of our five would-be din­ers to the bistro’s staff reflects a broad­er dis­dain for the work­ing class­es, as these mem­bers of the afflu­ent haute bour­geoisie proud­ly dis­play their sense of enti­tle­ment. And Simone’s hor­ror and revul­sion, when con­front­ed with the bistro owner’s corpse, points to the way that the con­ta­gion – indeed the very inevitabil­i­ty – of death itself threat­ens this party’s self-image of a god­like immor­tal­i­ty which, in their mind, sep­a­rates them from the nor­mal rules that gov­ern mere mortals.

There might be a ​‘dis­creet charm’ to the way that these six – espe­cial­ly the men – brush them­selves off with real sangfroid when­ev­er their (din­ner) plans go awry, but they are impe­ri­ous, arro­gant, awful peo­ple who imag­ine them­selves nat­u­ral­ly bet­ter than all who serve under them, and who repeat­ed­ly flout moral­i­ty and the law even as they snob­bish­ly insist upon their own supe­ri­or breed­ing, refine­ment and manners.

Mean­while the film’s episod­ic nar­ra­tive will be struc­tured around numer­ous attempts by these char­ac­ters, to enjoy a lunch, after­noon tea or din­ner with each oth­er (in dif­fer­ent con­stel­la­tions and set­tings), only for their meals to be inter­rupt­ed, dis­rupt­ed or gen­er­al­ly frus­trat­ed for one rea­son or anoth­er. This pran­di­al – one might call it con­sumerist – obses­sion makes the film form a bizarre coun­ter­part (in dip­tych) with Buñuel’s ear­li­er The Exter­mi­nat­ing Angel (1962), whose aris­to­crats find them­selves unable to leave the din­ner table after their meal.

Rafael might rev­el in his sta­tus as the ambas­sador of the Repub­lic of Miran­da, and the title of His Excel­len­cy which that sta­tus con­fers upon him, but real­ly Miran­da is an impov­er­ished, polit­i­cal­ly repres­sive tin­pot dic­ta­tor­ship, a refuge for Nazi exiles, and a hotbed of crim­i­nal activ­i­ties. Indeed Rafael’s wealth comes from sim­i­lar cor­rup­tion: the cocaine that he smug­gles into France via his diplo­mat­ic bag – and that François and Hen­ri then sell on for profit.

These men’s indig­na­tion when they dis­cov­er that sol­diers tem­porar­i­ly bil­let­ed at Henri’s house smoke mar­i­jua­na is a sign of their immense hypocrisy (“I loathe drug addicts”, declares François, with Rafael assert­ing his agree­ment). Rafael is not just play­ing the sys­tem, but cheat­ing his own friend, as he reg­u­lar­ly enjoys covert assig­na­tions with François’ wife (although the sex, like the din­ners, gets inter­rupt­ed). And while Rafael might present a front of charm­ing grace to the female rev­o­lu­tion­ary (Maria Gabriel­la Maione) who comes armed to his door, he only lets her go so that his thug­gish agents wait­ing out­side can inter­cept and abduct her to face unspeak­able hor­rors at home. For all his suits, social flu­en­cy and ​‘chival­ry’, Rafael is far from civilised.

While oth­ers in the film have dreams (vivid­ly realised, as they are nar­rat­ed, on screen) about the ghosts of the past return­ing for revenge or redemp­tion, the dreams of our three bour­geois anti­heroes expose their deep-seat­ed anx­i­eties and their guilty con­sciences. For Hen­ri dreams of being at a din­ner par­ty per­formed live for a the­atre audi­ence, and for­get­ting his lines on stage. François dreams that Rafael, hav­ing been has­sled by the guests at a par­ty about the ques­tion­able con­duct of Miran­da, shoots the host dead to restore his own hon­our. And Rafael him­self dreams that a din­ner at Henri’s is inter­rupt­ed by gun-tot­ing rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies come to kill every­body at the table.

In fact the six friends will all be arrest­ed dur­ing a lunch, and the arrest­ing com­mis­saire (François Maistre) will then dream that a revenant police­man releas­es them. In actu­al­i­ty, though, it is the men’s con­nec­tions with (by impli­ca­tion, equal­ly cor­rupt) polit­i­cal élites that will see them released from their cells with­out charge, and free to car­ry on break­ing the law with impuni­ty. The Dis­creet Charm Of The Bour­geoisie is full of sur­re­al sequences reveal­ing its char­ac­ters’ uncon­scious­es – but it also offers up a far more cyn­i­cal, all too recog­nis­able reality.

About halfway through The Dis­creet Charm Of The Bour­geoisie, a down­ward­ly mobile Bish­op turned part-time gar­den­er (Julien Bertheau) chats with Rafael and betrays, with repeat­ed gauch­eness, his igno­rance of Miran­da. First he refers to Bogo­ta as its cap­i­tal, con­fus­ing Miran­da with Colom­bia; then he prais­es ​“the Andes cordillera, the pam­pas”, as though it were Argenti­na; and final­ly he men­tions its ​“ancient pyra­mids”, which, as Rafael points out, are actu­al­ly found in Mex­i­co and Guatemala. The truth is that Miran­da is a fic­tion, invent­ed by Buñuel for this film – although it is also clear­ly a com­pos­ite of all these places and all their prob­lems (, the vast social divi­sions, the drug pro­duc­tion, the mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ships, the guer­ril­la coun­ter­forces, etc.).

Buñuel’s six bour­geois char­ac­ters are much the same as the dis­tant coun­try that unites their for­tunes. For while they are not real peo­ple, every­thing about them is famil­iar from our rul­ing class­es and mon­eyed élites, who work only to ben­e­fit them­selves, who treat the rest of us with con­tempt, and who, for all the priv­i­leges and perquisites that they enjoy, are always hun­gry for more. Buñuel has served up some­thing deli­cious­ly fun­ny, but bit­ter in its aftertaste.

The Dis­creet Charm of the Bour­geoisie is released on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD, 20 June, 2022, by StudioCanal.

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