The Young One

Unable to consummate her marriage, the beautiful yet distant young Séverine (Catherine Deneuve), wife of the wealthy Dr. Pierre Serizy (Jean Sorel), is overcome with kink fantasies. To explore her sexuality, Séverine begins working at an upscale brothel during the afternoons as their “beauty of the day” while her husband is at the office. Through Séverine, Luis Buñuel delves into the complexities of desire and identity, adding his signature touch of surrealism to her fantasies. Like many of Buñuel’s other works, Belle de Jour skewers bourgeoise hypocrisy while challenging societal norms.

As Luis Buñuel describes in his 1982 autobiography My Last Sigh, Él is “the portrait of a paranoiac, who, like a poet, is born, not made.” Its initial screenings at Cannes left audiences outraged, likely for being made to bear witness to the violent outbursts of an entitled chauvinist, portrayed by the lauded Arturo de Córdova in a role against type for such a beloved actor. This brutal takedown of toxic masculinity was hated by fellow Surrealist Jean Cocteau, who believed Buñuel had “committed [career] suicide” by making it, though embraced by Jacques Lacan, who appreciated Buñuel’s bravery in depicting what the philosopher saw as “psychological truths.”

Parisian maid Célestine (Jeanne Moreau) moves to a remote estate to tend house for the peculiar Monsieur Monteil (Michel Piccoli), joining a downstairs team of eccentrics whose idiosyncrasies rival those of their fetishistic employer. Director Luis Buñuel admired French actress and chanteuse Jeanne Moreau since seeing Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows (1958) and was thrilled to cast her as the titular chambermaid in his and Jean-Claude Carrière’s adaptation of Octave Mirbeau’s subversive 1900 novel. “She taught me things about the character...that I never expected were there,” Buñuel wrote in his 1982 autobiography, and their felicitous pairing jumpstarted a fertile period of filmmaking for the Spanish-born director in France.

With a name borrowed (with his permission) from Spanish writer José Bergamín’s unproduced play, and inspired by the apocalyptic Angel of Death, Luis Buñuel’s original script is a pitch-black satire about a wealthy group of friends who find themselves unable to leave a well-appointed living room after a dinner party. One of the director’s most inspired takedowns of the bourgeoisie, The Exterminating Angel is a tense exploration of inertia, extravagance, complacency, repetition, and mounting hysteria, and was the last full-length film he made in his adopted nation of Mexico.

Preparing to devote her life as a nun, novitiate Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) is summoned to pay her uncle Don Jaime (Fernando Rey) one last visit before taking her vows. To make Viridiana, Luis Buñuel returned to his homeland of Spain, following his 22-year self-exile during the rise of Francisco Franco’s fascist regime. The film had its world premiere at the 14th Cannes Film Festival, winning the Palme d’Or. Following the premiere, the Vatican denounced the film as blasphemous, and the Spanish government banned the controversial film—Viridiana didn’t premiere in the country until 1977, two years after Franco’s death.

Double Feature

The titular heroine, a beautiful young woman with a disturbed and tempestuous nature, escapes a women’s reform school during a stormy night. Finding refuge in the hacienda of a prosperous and respectable family, Susana (Rosita Quintana) soon destabilizes the relationship dynamics of the ranch as she seduces the men who inhabit it. While Susana is less overtly surreal in comparison to the rest of Luis Buñuel’s filmography, the film highlights the director’s subversive style as he explores social critique by demonstrating the fragility of morals through a well-to-do Mexican family.

Luis Buñuel orchestrates consistent unpredictability through narrative pivots and tonal shifts in his satirical masterpiece that won France an Oscar for International Feature Film and received a nomination for Original Screenplay, co-written by Jean-Claude Carrière. A series of happenings sewn together amid a relatively consistent motif is driven by the six French bourgeois who persistently pursue a dinner plan that is repeatedly interrupted by random incidents. In this repetitive digression, the value of the earnest pursuit becomes trivial, exposing the absurdity of the characters’ thoughtless actions.

Made during Luis Buñuel’s prolific two-decade period in Mexico, Los olvidados won the country’s second major prize at Cannes, following the landmark win of María Candelaria (1944). This against-formula juvenile crime drama showcases the power of Indigenous actress Estela Inda, recipient of a Silver Ariel for Best Supporting Actress for her memorable performance as the mother of the film’s young, impressionable protagonist; both characters try their damnedest to rise above the crime festering in the slums of Mexico City.

Double Feature

Following the success of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière collaborated on another satirical comedy as co-writers, which became Buñuel’s penultimate cinematic work as director. Starring such greats as Julien Bertheau, Monica Vitti, and Jean-Claude Brialy, to name a few, this surrealist masterpiece comprises nonlinear episodes moving from the early 1800s during Napoleon’s colonial occupation in Spain and monks gambling while drinking and smoking to an upper-class gathering with guests seated on toilet seats. A scent of absurdity permeates the air of these episodes despite the naive earnestness of the characters.