“Those looking for a smart laugh at the expense of the geniuses who steered us into the economic ditch might like to have cinematic wit Luis Buñuel back from the dead,” writes Seth Colter Walls, in an unusual, intriguing feature in this week’s issue of Newsweek (and online) about the uncanny timing of our recent release of the Spanish surrealist’s The Exterminating Angel (and Simon of the Desert). “Downright prescient,” he calls the film’s depiction of class division, literalized in a bizarre dinner party where the haute bourgeois guests can’t leave and the servants, inexplicably compelled to flee, wait outside. “It’s hard not to watch and think about the months of often petulant-sounding debate over the economic crisis, with the rich and powerful on one side (congressmen, Wall Street CEOs) and the working folks (everyone in Detroit) on the other—while no one gets anything done.” Walls even calls in an expert to support his contention that surrealism flourishes during crises. “If things get any weirder out there,” he concludes, The Exterminating Angel, “could well wind up being 2009’s most indispensable film.”
1962
94 min
Black and White
1.33:1
Categories: Clippings
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