The Exterminating Angel (1962) - The Criterion Collection

Synopsis

A group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner and inexplicably find themselves unable to leave in Luis Buñuel’s daring masterpiece The Exterminating Angel (El ángel exterminador). Made just one year after his international sensation Viridiana, this film, full of eerie, comic absurdity, furthers Buñuel’s wicked takedown of the rituals and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes.

Cast

Leticia “La Valkyrie”	Silvia Pinal
Edmundo Nobile	Enrique Rambal
Lucía de Nobile	Lucy Gallardo
Julio, the steward	Claudio Brook
Leandro Gomez	José Baviera
Carlos Conde, the doctor	Augusto Benedico
Sergio Russell	Antonio Bravo
Alicia de Roc	Jacqueline Andere
Alberto Roc	Enrique García Alvarez
Alvaro, the colonel	César del Campo
Silvia	Rosa Elena Durgel

Credits

Director	Luis Buñuel
Screenplay	Luis Buñuel
Based on a story by	Luis Alcoriza and Luis Buñuel
Cinematography	Gabriel Figueroa
Sound	José B. Carles
Production Design	Jesús Bracho
Music	Raúl Lavista
Editing	Carlos Savage
Costume design	Georgette Somohano

Disc Features

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET:

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
The Last Script: Remembering Luis Buñuel, a 2008 documentary featuring screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière and director Juan Luis Buñuel
New interviews with actress Silvia Pinal and filmmaker Arturo Ripstein
Theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film scholar Marsha Kinder and an interview with Buñuel from the 1970s

From the Current

Paging Dr. Buñuel!

Feb 23, 2009

“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 http://www.newsweek.com/id/185799 . . .

PRESS NOTES: WILD AND WOOLLY

Feb 16, 2009

Whether trapped in a mansion or on a pillar, their characters aren’t going anywhere, and lambs and sheep have a habit of wandering into frame—Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel and Simon of the Desert make a perfect matched set indeed, as critics have been enjoying discovering . . .

The Exterminating Angel:
Exterminating Civilization

by Marsha Kinder Feb 9, 2009

Luis Buñuel’s ferociously brilliant The Exterminating Angel (1962) is one of his most provocative and unforgettable works. In it we watch a trivial breach of etiquette transform . . .