Cet Obscur Objet Du Desir

Luis Bunuel - 1977
Perhaps my favourite Bunuel. Quite a lot of camera movement really, following people round in its smooth, almost dream like tracks (closer than the black and white pictures, of course), and also going off on its own, a particularly memorable track backwards in Rey's apartment. The lighting is often pretty hard, completely illuminating all of the face (the shadows are soft and under the chin), though in the night time a hot air is created by mixing this harshness with shadows. The focus is shallow, the colours disgusting, people sinking into the backdrops, as though the bourgeoise is a stage, with curtains to go behind.
The terrorist attacks that are total subversion, the random moments of robbery, violence are explosions from the outside, while the bourgeoisie explode inside. Desire, closing the eyes and following the path.
An interesting way of looking at this might be to try and see Conchita as more than just the phantasmic figure; what does she want? Freedom?
The framing device, of the storytelling, has the very process of telling the story as part of the eroticism... there is so much here. Marvellous.