Cet obscur objet du désir / That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) – 3/5

The ultimate romance stalling movie

„Cet obscur objet du désir“ or „That Obscure Object of Desire“ is a co-production between France and Spain from 1977, so this film hat its 45th anniversary last year, which sadly means that most people working on it are (long) gone now, but luckily not everybody. Director Luis Buñuel, however, is, but he was already closer to 80 than to 70 at that point and he may have lived for another five years afterwards, but this is his final work as a director. This is a bit sad because the outcome is quite good and you can feel as if he still would have had more to narrate, more film films to shoot if age had let him. It is also showing that at 105 minutes exactly, this is one of the longest movies of his career. The energy was definitely there. People back then agreed as this film made some really solid awards waves, was nominated for two Oscars, one Golden Globe and scored big with the National Board of Review and National Society of Film Critics. An Oscar nomination for Buñuel’s direction could have been a possibility even if you look at those wins. Anyway, with the script he once again collaborated with Jean-Claude Carrière, who was already an Oscar winner from one of the short film categories, and this was the second time the duo was nominated for a screenplay Oscar. Quite an achievement, especially for non-Americans. But at the same time, I am still sure that it did not mean the world to Buñuel anymore as he has seen so much and made so many movies since entering the industry back in the 1920s. I am still sure he would have been pretty curious what modern film would look like in the 21st century, so let’s all take a second now and be grateful that we get said chance to explore it. Carrière was more than 30 years younger than Buñuel and kept working on films for a long time afterwards, while also reaching a really old age, that he is (like Buñuel, who was always a bit stuck between France and Spain) without a doubt part of every French film history book now.

Anyway, there is a third writer here too and that would be Pierre Louÿs, who already died more than half a century before the production of this movie and this makes it of course obvious that the film is based on one of his literary works and actually it is the one that made the biggest waves in general and got turned into film on far more than this one occasion. He already has more than a dozen credits to his name from before the 1970s and the most recent one is from 2019. But now let’s look at this one here: The film is of course in color, which should surprise nobody as it is from the late 1970s, no matter how far away they may be now, but you can still emphasize it in terms of Buñuel because it shows his modern spirit and how he, after almost half a century of making films in black-and-white was still not staying away from new technologies and approaches, but happily embraced them and made this film in color then. Maybe he also liked the story because it was telling the tale of a fairly old man who is about to enter into a romantic relationship with a young woman. Maybe he saw himself a bit in this or would have loved to see himself like this, even if the main character here (as well as the actor wo portrays him) is more than a decade younger compared to Buñuel’s age back then. The lead actor is Fernando Rey and he has worked with Buñuel on (at least) two other occasions before that already, including one that won the Oscar. A very fruitful partnership.

I am honestly so surprised to see that they used two female actresses to play the female protagonist for this film. Totally unusual. I mean during the earlier days of film, also when Buñuel was working already, it happened here and there that they picked actors to play several characters, but the other way around is something you never see. I myself did not even recognize the difference. This also has to do with how stunning Carole Bouquet and Ángela Molina (not related to Alfred) are in this movie. Good news is these two are still alive now and they are getting closer to 70. Hopefully, they will also still be there if you come here a little later to take a look at this review of mine. I am pretty sure too that Bouquet’s performance here helped her to get into a Bond movie. She is French, but you will find actors with a Hispanic background in here too and not just a few. And also the film takes place in Spain here and there, but it actually moves through several European countries that it seemed too big of a coincidence for them to keep running into each other. The dominating language, however, is still French from beginning to end, so this is what you will need subtitles for if you are not totally fluent. I will not go into detail about all the cast members now, but you will find for example Muni or Bertheau in here and they are some that have also been part of other Buñuel films. The rest I will leave to the French/Spanish film buffs. I am sure they are more familiar with them and instead let us look a bit into the plot here. You can actually summarize the very core of it all in one sentence almost: This is a film about a man around the age of 60 or maybe slightly under who falls for a woman not even 20 and she is basically toying with him for almost the entire film. It is quite telling then that what she does to him is what you will remember most from this film and that it is not the situation where somebody points a knife at the man or towards the end a gun even and forces him to give them their money or car. She is the most destructive force here. I mean she exposes her breasts to him and also there is cuddling and kissing going on, but in terms of intercourse there is stalling from her side from beginning to end and situations like some assault taking place in front of the window or the two sleeping in the room where the man’s wife once lived always offer new opportunities for her to say that it is not the right day yet for her to fully give herself to him.

There are other situations too that make her seem really unlikable, for example when we realize she has her friend sleep at the man’s place without the man knowing or of course the scene towards the end when she shows her true colors or also when she works at a dance club that is really more of a strip club, but oh well. There she is not the prude she seems to be before that. How she literally made sure he has no physical chance to get close to her down there was almost one of the funniest moments of the film. Even if it was not too funny for him. From today’s perspective, there are two situations that are maybe seen differently in the 21st century than they were seen back then right after the production of this film and maybe make it a bit more difficult to feel sorry for him and back then I am sure almost everybody felt sorry for him, at least the males. The first inclusion would be the one in which we have the man almost rape her, but then he restrains himself or is also in a way held back by a clever distractive comment from her and the second scene would be the one when he literally smacks her repeated that she is bleeding a lot from her face. This is already at the end then, so you can think to what extent at least she also has tendencies of sadomasochism inside her. She loves playing with the old fool, but she still won’t go away from him after he hurts her pretty bad. This is a relationship as toxic as it gets and yet there they are leaving together in the end there holding hands with the next humiliations probably not waiting for long. Thinking about it now, I am almost a bit surprised that the guy did not kill the woman in an outburst of rage on one occasion, but for that he may even have been too civilized still. It would have been a fitting inclusion to end things with previous metaphors and symbolisms like the dead mouse/rat and the repeated mentions of terrorism and explosions. Nonetheless, you can only shake your head at him still not being able to get away from her, not even when she kinda tries to get away from him at the very end then. Or is it a depiction of a tables-turned scenario?

I just mentioned the terrorism aspects. This is really something that you will see on quite a few occasions. At the start, at the end and also in-between, like when the man is robbed himself. Fitting sound effect and visual effect then too when pretty much the closing credits roll in. But Buñuel loved that. I think he did something similar with a lightning storm with an older movie and that one did not even have something to do with the film at all. Here it does with the tumultuous political times having a direct connection to the tumultuous relationship between the two protagonists. I am not even sure if there is an accurate term to summarize what is going on between the two, but all I can think of is stalling right now. I am sure there is, but you know what I mean anyway. So yeah, guys who read this, don’t let women treat you this way, no matter how charming they may seem! And of course also don’t hit them or physically hurt them! Just move on. If they care, they will keep coming. Well, I have an easy time saying this I guess because I am not sure how I would have reacted in this scenario and I am only twice as old as Bouquet(’s character) here, but man is she drop-dead gorgeous. Her deep voice was a bit off-putting though here and there. Anyway, I guess this is really it then. What we have here is a pretty good movie and I am glad I went to see it on the occasion of this current Luis Buñuel retrospective. At this point, after having seen 50% of the films I want to see, it is in the top spot and we will see if it can stay there or if another film takes over eventually. The one thing that is not going to change ever is my positive recommendation for the outcome here. It is probably also not a great film overall, but definitely good enough for a thumbs-up. I also kinda liked the way how the film is narrated in flashbacks. Go see it!