Luis Bunuel - The French Period
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Widely recognised as one of the best filmamkers of the 20th century, the world of Spanish director Luis Bunuel (1900 – 1983) is a very peculiar one: surrealist, dreamy, sexual. While the Side Cinema is showing his early Spanish films (from 8 to 29 June), we are showing 4 of his incredible later French films.
Films in the Luis Bunuel - The French Period:
18
Film: Belle De Jour (1967)
18 Jun 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, this is one of Bunuel’s most famous films. With the incredible French star Catherine Deneuve, playing a bored housewife who works as a prostitute during the day. “Possibly the best-known erotic film of modern times, perhaps the best.” – Roger Ebert
20
Film: Diary Of A Chambermaid (1964)
20 Jun 2010, 7:30 p.m.
One of the few narrative films from Bunuel, it stars the incredible French actress Jeanne Moreau (Jules and Jim). The film was a crucial turning point in Bunuel’s career, marking the start of his “French period”. A chambermaid arrives in a rich family and uses her feminine charm to control her situation.
24
Film: The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie (1972)
24 Jun 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, and chosen as best film of the year by the American National Society of Film Critics, this is Bunuel’s most successful film, also in financial terms. A surrealistic film featuring dreams and irrational happenings, it is Bunuel’s vision of the bourgeoisie, with adultery, drugs and military coups.
27
Film: That Obscure Object Of Desire (1977)
27 Jun 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Bunuel’s last film, about an ageing Frenchman in love with a Spanish flamenco dancer, who wouldn’t have sex with him. “With an effortlessness matched by no other director today, Buñuel creates a vision of a world as logical as a theorem, as mysterious as a dream, and as funny as a vaudeville gag.” NY Times, 1977