Throwback: El ángel exterminador (dir. Luis Buñuel), 1962

As two servants attempt to sneak out of the grand house on Providence Street, they rush back behind a door for the second arrival of the dinner guests. Yes—the dinner guests arrive twice, as though the film itself merely skipped backward. Luis Buñuel, however, is not that clumsy a director. The repetition of the dinner guest’s entry is the first, and most obvious, of 27 repetitions placed throughout the Mexican masterpiece El ángel exterminador.

Edmundo Nobile and his wife Lucia are hosting an extravagant dinner party. As the servants prepare, they sneak off in pairs and hurriedly leave the mansion, unaware of what actually may be compelling them to do so. As the bourgeois dinner guests’ gossip from the high stature of their economic status, looking down to their fellow guests and, most certainly, the few remaining servers, physical comedy ensues: a server trips and spews the first course on the ground. It was an intentional ploy for laughs, thought up by Lucia. Ultimately unsuccessful, she goes to the kitchen to complain about the strained service to Julio, the majordomo. Here, she learns that all the servants have left, leaving the majordomo alone to complete the evening. Lucia reluctantly informs Julio the bear and sheep will have to be penned. Yes—a comedic trope involving a bear and sheep were planned as post-dinner entertainment. With the servants gone, willing to lose their jobs to escape the mansion, the evening entertainment is now in the hands of their fellow guests.

As the dinner guests retire to the salon, Leticia (Silvia Pinal) remains at the dinner table, just to launch a glass through the window. Leticia has been nicknamed the Valkyrie, for she is a ferocious virgin, at least as told by her gossiping peers. One man suggests the shattered glass is merely “a passing Jew” underlying the open prejudices of the bourgeois. In the salon, Blanca plays a piano sonata for the group as they sit down and unwind. More exposition occurs between the characters, further highlighting their disassociation from civilized society. Carlos, a doctor, passionately kisses Leonora, a patient of his who believes he cured her cancer. Carlos later admits to Gomez, another party goer, that she’ll be bald in three months. As the sonata continues, Jewish guest Ana, a practitioner of Kabbalah, removes a handkerchief from her purse, nestled beneath feathers and chicken’s feet (meant to symbolize good fortune). As Blanca finishes her sonata, the room applauses and Edmundo orders Julio to ready the goats for the soon departing guests.

However, this is where the film takes a sharp right into surrealism: the guests do not leave. Rather, they begin to kick off their shoes and remove coats. The guests slink onto couches and chairs, choosing to fall asleep in the salon. Lucia and Edmundo are taken aback: it breaks proper etiquette and the clock is approaching four in the morning. The pair relent and join the guests, nestling onto the floor rather than retiring to their room. In fact, Edmundo had offered guest rooms to those who wanted to remain, yet they all choose to sleep in the salon. The salon doors remain open, but the guests, for no reason they know yet (or will ever understand), refuse to pass the invisible barrier. Only Julio can do so. Once morning arrives, Lucia reluctantly acknowledges they must serve breakfast to their guests who overstayed their welcome. Only, the milkman has not delivered the milk and the groceries have not arrive either. Julio is ordered to bring fresh coffee and leftovers from dinner to the salon.

Three guests are ready to finally leave and walk to the open doors of the salon, only to mutually agree that coffee would be nice prior to departure. Julio has forgotten spoons and is ordered to retrieve them, only he too is reluctant to leave the salon now. Guests begin to notice the reluctance, questioning why certain people have chosen to stay for coffee or even why coffee is being served in the salon. “Isn’t it appropriate to have breakfast in the dining room?” they ask. The guests have no idea why they cannot pass the invisible barrier, they just know they cannot. As one old guest passes away, food disappears, and water becomes scarce, the guests descend into madness. Those in society viewed as the most civilized due to their extreme wealth far descend those they look down upon. A pipe in the wall is broken as a water source and deceased guest, whose dying words were “I’m glad I don’t have to witness the extermination,” is hidden in a closet, cloth shoved into cracks to spare others the smell of death. Guests hallucinate and a young, engaged couple kill themselves hidden in one of the closets. As Carlos tries to maintain the sanity of the group, Edmundo admits they have drugs stashed away, perhaps of use to the guests suffering illnesses. Two guests, brother and sister, overhear and plan to smuggle the drugs for their own use. One guest, in need of his own medication, is unable to find it. When another comes upon them, he tosses them far out of reach into the adjoining room, essentially an act of manslaughter.

Outside the house, gatherers await at the gate of the property. The gate itself is open, but not unlike the salon, there appears to be an invisible barrier keeping those outside. The army has been told to enter, but will not. Loved ones of those trapped inside plan to storm the mansion, but have second thoughts once against the invisible barrier. Even the former staff find themselves drawn back to the mansion walls, all at once, to observe the madness. As the sheep and bear break loose, the former are lured into the salon and slaughtered for food. Furniture is broken for firewood and the guests begin to believe Edmundo, the host, is responsible for their ire. Perhaps they can break the curse by murdering him, they discuss. However, at the last minute, Leticia realizes everyone is in their same position as the night of their dinner party. She asks Blanca to play her sonata, and suggests the guests do their best to re-enact that evening. They do so, and the repetition frees them, despite the three deceased guests obviously being out of place.

Later, at a church service attended by the dinner party guests, the mass concludes the clergy and fellow worshippers find themselves stuck inside, as the cycle seemingly repeats itself. Only, the dinner party guests appear to have disappeared. As police begin to shoot rioters outside, a heard of sheep quickly descend toward the church doors.

Answers are not something given at the end of the film, rather, the audience is meant to conclude the film and its message themselves. The pattern and importance of repetition is key, as is the study of class and wealth. In some ways, Buñuel created the first scripted reality series, asking the question: what will the rich do when stuck in a room together with limited resources? In fact, Buñuel explores the trivial breach of etiquette and how it leads to the destruction of civilization. The story itself undermines social institutions, but challenges the viewers’ perception as it readily distorts its own narrative through the unreliable viewpoints. Buñuel, a native Spaniard, had spent his last 18 years in Mexico and the film itself features a largely Mexican cast. Banned and Spain and considered sacrilegious by the Vatican, Buñuel was determined to demonstrate what could be achieved with artistic freedom in Mexico, even as an exile. Buñuel himself has stated that had the film been made elsewhere in Europe, the savagery of the guests could have been pushed into cannibalism. However, I think this push would have been unnecessary and slightly grotesque. The beauty of the film is the savagery of its guests in regard to their fellow peers own humanity, which need not feasting on their flesh.

It has been almost a week since I viewed this film for the first time and I still do not have all the answers. The film is one that bubbles in the mind of viewer in search of a clean conclusion that likely does not exist. Though, sometimes these films are the most satisfying, allowing a 90-minute production to endlessly continue though viewers, allowing us all to be vessels of the film-making process.