The Exterminating Angel (1962)


Luis Buñuel is a director pretty much everyone has some familiarity with.  For students of surreal cinema (and fans of Pixies) there is Un chien andalou, a short film from the 1920s made in partnership with Salvador Dali.  For the serious film student there is Simon of the Desert, another short movie that explores the fine line between devotion and hubris.  For most, especially the art film crowd, there is Belle du jour, his stab at the French New Wave.  The latter is probably his most well-known, although I like it the least of his works, largely because of my frustration and dislike for that particular film movement.  

He had different phases of his career with one being a long stint beginning in 1946 making films in Mexico.  Buñuel enjoyed the freedom he had there as well as working internationally.  Although he spent a good deal of the 1950s making movies outside of Mexico, Simon of the Desert and The Exterminating Angel, two of the final films he made there, stand among his strongest. 

Edmundo Nobile (Enrique Rambal) and his wife Leticia (Silvia Pinal) are members of the upper class.  One night they invite a group of friends to their mansion after seeing an opera to have a party.  Without knowing why the majority of the servants, save their butler Julio (Claudio Brook), leave the house before the party gets started.  At first it seems a grand old time but, as the night grows late, everyone begins to hunker down in the one room where the festivities were held.  No one understands why but, when they wake up in the morning, they find themselves unable to leave the room.

The first issue that arises is a man named Russel (Antonio Bravo) becomes ill and, though there is a doctor (Augusto Benedico) in attendance, he can do little.  It soon also becomes apparent that no one in the room has access to food or water, a situation that becomes even more desperate as the days drag on.  Outside the mansion the authorities become concerned, but none of them are able to cross the threshold of the gates to speak with those inside or determine if they are alive.  With their situation becoming increasingly desperate many of the guests begin to take extreme measures to break whatever strange spell has possessed the house. 

Buñuel has stated that many of his movies do not have any hidden meanings.  There is his usual troubled relationship with the Catholic church thrown in and The Exterminating Angel could definitely be said to have some allegories about class divide.  The movie, if it had gone further, might have even been an adult version of Lord of the Flies.  What I didn't expect is that it functions as a horror film, though it is not explicitly intended to be. 

Things never get as desperate as cannibalism, but they do reach the point of advocating human sacrifice to escape their predicament.  All around the acting is perfect, while here and there Buñuel throws in a psychedelic dream sequence to keep things even more off-kilter.  For a movie that is nominally meant to be more visual storytelling than actual plot it pretty much sticks with it, even going so far as to consider the repercussions of being stuck in a room with a bunch of people and having to survive. 

There are also elements of repetition throughout that may serve as a clue to what is happening though, like most movies like this, the results are much more important than the why.  Despite having next to no budget The Exterminating Angel manages to confound and entertain without reaching the levels of pretention that a lesser director would have brought. 

The Exterminating Angel (1962)
Time: 95 minutes
Starring: Silvia Pinal, Enrique Rambal, Augusto Benedico, Jacqueline Andere
Director: Luis Buñuel

 

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