Le fantôme de la liberté / The Phantom of Liberty (1974) – 3/5

Buñuel unleashing freely here

„Le fantôme de la liberté“ or „The Phantom of Liberty“ is a co-production between France and Italy from 1974, so this film will have its 50th anniversary next year and this was shown this year already again on the big screen on the occasion of a retrospective including (some of) the works of filmmaker Luis Buñuel and no matter if you are looking at France or Spain or maybe Italy even, he is considered among the defining directors of his country and one of the defining filmmakers of his era in general. This film we have here is perhaps not one of his most-seen efforts, but still pretty famous just like almost everything else he has done over the years, no decades actually. Buñuel was already into his 40s when he made this one, so it was one of the latter, maybe even final filmmaking effort from his career and he had also won the Oscar already or let’s say France won the Oscar for one of his films as the foreign language feature category does/did not honor individuals. So nothing at risk anymore and he could let it all out here and he sure did. I will get to that a little later. This film runs for almost 105 minutes, over 100 definitely, and this makes it one of Buñuel’s longest movies. He was not a man to surpass the two-hour mark or actually he never really came too close to it. Makes sense too as he started with short films and I even like it that way. No need to stretch a film for the sake of it. This is of course one of the man’s color films and he worked again together with the much younger Jean-Claude Carrière who lived until fairly recently and he was in his early 40s back then and him and Buñuel worked together on so many occasions, especially in the latter’s last two decades of filmmaking. Last decade almost even. Fruitful collaboration for sure though.

The cast is also fairly interesting for this movie here. You will maybe not find as many people as on other Buñuel films that were regular actors in his works, but they are still there. The cast list on imdb is kinda chronological in terms of appearance, so I cannot say who got the most screen time, but Michel Piccoli is in several Buñuel films and same is true for Muni, even if most of the time (here as well with one scene only early on I believe) she does not have a gigantic amount of screen time. Speaking of actors with one-word names, I find it interesting that somebody called „Hummel“ is credited here. It’s the German word for bumblebee. Anyway, it is a really long cast list here, maybe the longest from Buñuel’s career. But yeah, like many other times with him, it is all about the ensemble cast again this time. Not one actor or performance really stands out from the rest here. I found it interesting that in Celi and Lonsdale we have two actors who played Bond antagonists, one before this film and one later on. Lonsdale always has great recognition value of course. Then we got Brialy who also had a pretty strong career. Monica Vitti always delivers and Jean Rochefort, well, I don’t think there is a anything I need to say about this one really. Really spectacular cast here, Buñuel himself also plays a tiny role. Blink and you will miss him, so pay close enough attention. It does not happen that you see him too often in his films. Anyway, Carrière is in here too. They are even in the same sequence apparently. Two for one.

Alright, I already stated that this film did not score too much awards attention really, but I am sure Buñuel was not too upset because of that. I mean he had seen it all by then at his age anyway and also won so much. It was still not a non-factor either. The National Board of Review liked the movie for example. Maybe for another screenplay Oscar nomination, the film was too wild for some in the end. I am not too sure there, but I can say I liked it. The absurdities that came with it were downright hilarious here and there, even to an extent where I would say it is maybe my favorite from the filmmaker. Not the most obvious choice for sure. Or at least my favorite in terms of films in which Fernando Rey is not playing a character wooing young women. But back to this one here: Maybe my favorite moment was the absurdity that came with it linked to the (not really) missing young girl. How she was there all the time and yet they talked as if she was not there. This was hilarious. Also Buñuel at his most harmless there, even if the idea of a missing girl is something scary. Also how they acted when she was „back“. You can maybe make an indirect link between this and the scene relatively early on when we have a creepy middle-aged man approach two girls and give them photos and tells them they must not show them to any grown-ups, only other kids. The pictures still land in the hands of the parents and they react as if the man indeed photographed some of his genitalia or so, but truth is it was landscape photography or certain sights and monuments and the parents acted so disgusted there. Hilarious stuff. There Buñuel really let it all out and I loved it! I also liked the moment early on at the very start of this scene when the man was moving towards the girls and it was such a fine line there between him just being a dad or actually being a molester. I found it interesting, how one or two words or rather sentences can take it completely in one direction.

What else? Oh yes, the guy from the police commissioner or so who gets a call from his allegedly deceased sister and is then arrested on the cemetery. Now that was quite something too, how they then do not recognize him afterwards and treat him as some regular criminal. We do not find out about a solution there why they do or also why he was called and who called him and if the sister may really be alive. But that is okay. Buñuel is a filmmaker who is known for creating absurdities and mysteries, but not really offering any solutions. He does not have to for this film to become a success. I enjoyed the movie almost from beginning to end. Maybe true greatness I don’t see in here either, but giving the outcome anything other than a positive recommendation was never an option for me. I find it a bit of a pity that it did not score as much awards attention as many other works by Buñuel, but yeah as I said I am sure he was the one who cared least, so it’s all good. For the rest of the review, I will just do some more brainstorming now: There’s many more mysteries, like alarm clocks where the time changes so quickly or a cock that shows up in the middle of the night in a bedroom and I actually do mean the bird. Or the ostrich immediately not much later. Just appreciate the moment(s), don’t even try to find reason in it. It’s Buñuel after all. One thing that can be said is that, as usual, Buñuel has some pretty stunning women in this film too. The title sounds almost too full of itself for my taste as I prefer to enjoy this film rather from a pointless fun perspective, but I am sure you can find many references linked to society and life therein again as always as well with Buñuel.

The man was really going for one taboo after the next here. If the scene between the young man and his aunt (almost) having sex was not enough already, there also comes some female nudity there, like full nudity, just look at the moment in which two people put on a little SM show for a group of priests. That was so random and came so out of nowhere, but I found it hilarious. Really had to laugh there. Gee that moment was quite something and should be included in every best-of sequence about the absurdities from Buñuel’s movies. There is a lot to find there for sure, also a lot to find in this film here. I am actually glad that the film series has many visitors and I have seen quite a few of the film and there wasn’t one that had an almost empty room. Definitely more viewers than I expected in total. Good for him, even if there is no way I would include Buñuel among my favorite filmmakers, now that I have seen all his defining works I guess. One more film tonight and then the retrospective ends for me. There was also a touch of Police Academy in this film and you will know what I mean with that when you see it (boy, did one of the actors there resemble the young Ted Levine so much or rather his Stottlemeyer character) and of course the probably most violent segment involved this shooter from the skyscraper building who randomly fired and killed people, is caught then and despite being sentenced to death just let go out of the courtroom after the hearing. More bizarreness. He was treated like a hero outside, maybe a brief elaboration by Buñuel on the absurdity of some women being drawn to murderers. Which in a way shows us that no matter what Buñuel or anybody else does in their movies, reality will always be the biggest atrocity. I think I will leave it at that. I am not sure I can say that this film is a connection of vignettes, but it is a collection of snippets and you can actually see them as independent short films almost. The approach is not too different compared to Buñuel’s Oscar-winning film from shortly before that. Key difference is though that it is not the same actors in every segment, so these feel even more in a way that they are just not connected to each other at all. That is it. Go watch „The Phantom of Liberty“, even if the rating on imdb is too high, and may the many actors from this film that left us already rest in peace.