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Luis Buñuel film excels in the use of surrealism to the storytelling moment. In the film screenings for this work highlights the diversity that this director makes use of this device as narrative and stories and concepts are present throughout the film.
In "The Exterminating Angel" Buñuel makes use of surrealism showing a group of people for no apparent reason is trapped in a room after a party. It is perhaps an excuse to show the hidden things of the society governed by the customs of correct behavior, since simple reason that they are locked is not complying with the protocol of farewell. Surrealism is portrayed here in the way the characters develop their thoughts and how they interrelate with each other.
In "Belle de jour" Surrealism is not as evident as in previous ones, since the story takes place under the traditional rules of Aristotelian scheme, as are the characters at the same time, the development of conflict has the beginning of the film and the progress of the characters runs consistently. Surrealism is presented in the form of dreams and somehow Severine in the perversions of it to the historical moment in which the story unfolds, and the ease with which the characters take the sex and perversions.
"Le Fantôme de la liberté (The Phantom of Liberty)" It's surrealism in full context, starting with the Napoleonic battle until the final scream "I die free" to make way for the well-known ostrich. Where all the characters behave inconsistently
to their reality and shape, where the constantly changing line of action, and history gave way to another and do not seem to be resolved in one hundred percent. Human customs and freedom of thought and action are the only constant throughout this film.
narrative of
In "The Exterminating Angel " the Aristotelian narrative occurs on a conventional with a beginning, a middle and an end clearly defined. What makes this movie surreal is the fact of taking a situation and present it in a different context and with inconsistent characters on the situation. That is, a group of elite people in society, far-reaching economic and social, are "castaways" in their own home without physical reasons that hold there.
The story unfolds primarily with the servants of the house fleeing from their work without justification, they just want to leave, although it has been a dinner with many guests.
arrive these after a night at the opera and the characters are presented at the dinner, the various conflicts of each, are the offices and the relevant features of personality (artist, doctor, etc..).
Many elements in the film are repeated, is made twice at the same time, for example, used to be twice the man giving the toast twice etc. But these actions are not repeated per se, but it re-done but with different reactions from others or themselves, clear elements of Buñuel's own way of narration and in the manner of Surrealism.
After dinner, the characters go to the salon where they talk, dance and discuss amicably, until it was time to retire, which is a break and that is when the main conflict is presented, where the characters no apparent reason, Instead of leaving, as is expected by the hosts, will accommodate more in the lounge until they simply lie down to sleep every one they can, breaking all the rules of decorum. Yet all maintain their level so that the hosts never cease to be such, and despite the rejection they feel so that your guests are doing, they join them, since they can not let them feel bad or uncomfortable.
is in the morning when all the characters slowly realize they are trapped and that is when it develops the theme of the film. From this point forward, the characters are losing as each day passes, decorum and status are appearing is disappearing and their more primitive instincts and seeking everything to survive.
whole development of the film is made so that each character represents a shipwrecked characters icon. There is a doctor, that's who keeps his composure and takes care of the sick, there are a couple together and commit suicide together to not suffer the pains of dying slowly and never run out of the other, is the butler who's who knows of Work workers and continues to operate and so on.
The sheep and the bear, introduced as pets to homeowners, perform functions that would meet the wild animals in a story of castaways, for example, sheep are always present but out of reach, and it is only when the characters and give more and are not about to fall into madness because of hunger that the sheep arrive and become the feast of hungry. Later, the bear becomes the justification to keep locked in the room, as the threat from outside, hovering and climbing the nearby pillars.
Family members and people outside the home are desperate to not knowing who they are inside the house, and as a movie kind of wrecks, is the character who boldly agreed with a plan to enter the house and confirm that people caught this healthy and to communicate with the outside, but do not let him enter the riskiness of the situation.
The climax and denouement of the film is given when the characters realize they did not meet the good habit of saying goodbye to the time came to say goodbye, and as they realize this, they discover that the only way out is fixing what went bad, aircraft or boat which stories of shipwrecks.
The final scene, which corresponds to all characters in a church for the promised "Te Deum" to be saved, not more than a satirization of the characters that become victims of their fate and fall back "Shipwrecked ", but this time in a" boat "bigger and with more people on board. Buñuel as being compassionate is more lambs are commanded to withstand time ahead.
"Belle de jour " tells the story of a young bourgeois woman who is faced with their darkest fantasies and the implementation of these is the only way to be happy.
In this film, Buñuel uses, as never before in narrative form, the Aristotelian system in a clear and almost classical, where the surreal is given perhaps in the way they are perversions of each character.
The film part and introduced almost immediately Severine's internal conflict as a start we see, under the credits, a carriage that carries with her husband, then stop, force it to download and is hit by a coach who guided the order of her husband. This is a dream of Severine, presenting at first the desire to be dominated.
After this sequence shows an estranged couple, Severine and her husband sleep in separate beds, denies she is depressed and physical affection from him.
Henceforth introduce the characters and situations almost classical form. A dinner with friends of the couple, where brothels and Severine discovers that her husband visited them before being with her. Her husband's friend gives him a direction, at her request.
Severine is repressed by his past and that's why he hides his perversions and erotic fantasies, which only give free rein to your imagination. This is exemplified when he remembers itself by rejecting the host at Mass as a child.
Upon learning of the existence of brothels and taking the direction of one presents the main conflict of the film, which is to her working as a prostitute.
The address given by the friend of the couple is the home of Anais, a high-brothel, which is responsible for fulfilling the fantasies of clients. This is where it is presented and is offered a job, but hides its true identity itself encouraged by Anais and she who gets the nickname "Belle de jour", to be as self-restriction work 2 to 5 pm, the time at which her husband works, making it a "beautiful day."
conflict development takes place here, which is the alternate world of Severine, where they can fulfill their dark fantasies of being enslaved and sodomized be owned and despised, provided the most bizarre fantasies of their clients, for example to daughter dead for a duke, do dominatrix punishment for a gynecological examination, among others. Developing
a parallel life to married life, slowly returns to see happiness and smile for the first time with her husband and even offers to sleep with him, which is a clear example that the repression was now compliant your fantasy is gone.
But the dramatic turn, and the climax, as in a classic, comes on the heels of the peril facing against the possibility that the two worlds together and lose what you have with your husband, as the best friend of his and who delivered the address of the brothel, go to this place, perhaps intentionally, to discover, and the faces in the situation, forcing it to renounce her fantasy life and real life again. But like a classic film, nothing is so simple, a young mobster falls for her client and the threat of more sharp and specific binding of both worlds by presenting your home at a time when her husband this and requires it to return to the brothel and stay with him or will tell you everything but her husband, which she refuses to not feel threatened because she has decided to confess everything.
The man, frustrated and angry, waiting for Pierre (Severine's husband) and shoots him a coward for leaving badly wounded and escaped, only to be killed at the hands of the police.
After the climax comes the decline logical and dramatic break in the film slowly return to an unaltered state, we see the couple getting ready to accept the new reality, in which he is a paraplegic, and she never confess their perversions tube, but again is threatened by the friend of the couple, who come to confess everything to the crippled man. But at this point that we are facing a buñuelistico element as the paraplegic suddenly stands up and raises a glass of wine while listening from the window a carriage, which, Severine leaving the balcony, we found that is the same carriage of fantasy from the beginning, walking the same path. Nothing is over.
" Le Fantôme de la liberté (The Phantom of Liberty)" demonstration is far stronger than the surrealism of Buñuel, where there is no central narrative line, where the structure is not so, there are characters and conventions that break with common conventions, which passes from one story to another for no apparent reason, with minimal connections to each other, no central conflict, no initiation, development and climax, just surreal symbols and certain criticism from Buñuel.
The film begins with a Napoleonic battle, where they prepare to shoot a group of people, you hear a scream "Down with liberty." Suddenly comes a woman's voice narrating the facts, but when I do not know what the word "paraphernalia" we see that is the ordinary woman reading a book. She sits on a square next to another woman trying to explain the meaning of that word. Then we see some girls come by bicycle and then talking to women, continue their journey only to find shelter with a man that gives them some pictures on the sly and
saying that they are not displayed to adults. Here you can assume he was a pedophile trying to pervert these girls, but when they come home and show them the photos to their parents, they were just pictures of buildings. Here is the first surreal element of the film, because despite being only photos architectural, parents have the same reaction they would if they were pornographic, disgust them, destroy them and fired the nanny for allowing that to happen. But that's not all, at the end of the review, the photos are returned to the girls.
Then, the father of two who had confessed to having trouble sleeping, passed a sleepless night, but still awake at midnight, we introduced another element characteristic of Buñuel, a chicken, a postman who comes to cycling enter a letter in the room and an ostrich. In the next scene, the physician's anger makes us understand that it was a dream but the girls' father shows him the letter to himself, destroying the assumptions and making clear that the mailman if I enter the room.
In these first 15 minutes we witnessed what should be the initial toe the development of several parallel stories, but this is not the case. The point is that from now on and forget about girls, how they ended the story of Napoleon, of course depraved and even sleep problems the father and the conflict with the chicken and ostrich postman who saw, for now we go with the story of the nurse, and everything before that completely unfinished and the only effect they have on the story that follows, is that the nurse works for the doctor who treated his father. Nothing more. According
structure, within a short film that has the reason is this, that is, mini stories together into a larger, must also comply with the rule beginning, middle and end, where we introduces the characters, situations and conflict and aim, but as we have seen, nothing like that happens, but we've only taken the characters in the middle of a larger story that we are told.
then continue with the story of a nurse who travels to visit his sick father. The road is a tank and soldiers who ask if you saw a fox. This is another seemingly random. She continues her journey to get to a pension using the phone, but because of the storm lines are cut, so we are forced to spend the night there. In this board are some priests who offer prayer on behalf of his father for improvement. They lead to the sick room a religious image and pray along with it. By direct cut, then we see the priests, along with her and the owner of the board, playing cards betting with the images of virgins, sacred hearts and scapulars as tokens. So here the story is somewhat "normal" they are not so attributable to surrealism only corruption of the priesthood.
Feeling the bell ring, the owner of the pension falls to welcome new customers, an elderly woman, nearly 60 years, and a young man with a 20. Now the film focuses on the perverse history. He is the nephew of the woman. Both fled to be alone and unleash your hidden love. She is a virgin and afraid of being touched by him, but the nephew only wants to see her naked.
Again we find a random narrative, since they do not know as this story begins, we only have strokes through what the characters let us know and we will not see the outcome, and we only know this particular time because they passed along with the story we were hearing the nurse.
Then another narrative turn. The nephew, who leaves the room she meets a man who invited him to drink port to his room. The young, insecure, agrees. After a while of conversation, ask the nurse comes matches, but finished with four more priest's nephew, drinking and conversation in this new room. This is just a plan of the man who brought them there to satisfy their perversion of being beaten and insulted by a dominatrix in front of more people. This causes anger and wrath of the guests who go to their rooms.
After this interval, we return to the room's nephew, who while preparing for sleep, is interrupted by her aunt, who gives him bodily to the end.
In this second part, we learned three stories that intersect at a key point, but can only be crossed by chance, and only knew why, and he has from this point will be disconnected and forget them to move to the next. JA Greimas and again the narrative of the characters, conflicts and the many developments that should have not already exist we know only fragments of each story.
As usual in this film, it changes from one history to another place with such fluidity that it is not shocking or stressful.
The next morning the nurse continues its path, but this time put a man accepts. This man is the protagonist of this story. Is a professor who gets to do classes at a school uniform.
As a definition, surrealism is to take the properties of an element and apply them to a completely different, and that's what happens here, where the teacher is to make teaching a group of uniformed adults behave like children basic education, annoying and not paying attention. Slowly the teacher is running out of students, for various reasons, until only the two most contentious.
Buñuel's film recounts the reasons he has to make this movie the way they did it, for example, in the previous story, the man who invites them to drink port, invites you to celebrate "by chance that met there, "thus explaining the main theme of the film, which is the random union of each story. Now the teacher explains to her class rules and social conventions and what would happen if these change, which exemplifies the use of surrealism to Buñuel. The teacher explained by telling a story where the customs are inverse where around the table shared with the group more private act of man, using the bathroom. Around a table instead of chairs are toilets, guests happily sit and talk that dinner, and when she says he is hungry, the mother challenges that "it does not say in the table." Then the teacher, the protagonist of this sub-story is an excuse to go to the cafeteria, a small room which is located "at the bottom right" as the bathroom, and bathing is a similarity, but with a table and where eat in private. Then the story is interrupted by students who are, as their turn is about to begin. Again history has been cut randomly and we do not hear the teacher.
Students who have enrolled in a left hand turn into a duct, which is union with the following story. The man goes to the doctor, who after examination no way to tell who has cancer, ridiculous situation, since among the turns given, asks for permission to make a cut just to see, not justified. After angry and slapped the patient leaves home, only to find that her daughter has disappeared, but when you get to see that her school is still there, but completely ignore it and continue with the protocol of a disappearance go to the police and demand have disappeared, all with the girl has already seen and consideration of all.
Then we went to the story of a sniper, that the random exercise, kill from a high floor in a building as many people as you can, only to be arrested and tried for the death penalty. Surrealism Here comes into play as in the above sequence, where the police fill the missing data by asking the same. The convict, just after being convicted, is released by the same police who removed the chains and fires him kindly.
briefly A narrator announces that we have just witnessed trial lasted 14 months, while the search for the girl still is at this point that we return to history the girl, who is given to their parents after being found, but the surreal is that she comes with her mother. This brief intervention is only to go down in history of the police chief, who is interrupted in the middle of reading the report.
Now follow the police chief who goes to a bar to meet with someone, but the delay of itself, makes the boss distracted and notice a woman who is very similar to her sister, who died four years ago. He says this to women and tells the story of a hot day her sister was playing the piano naked. Against this dream to the phone and is for the boss, is his dead sister that offers a encounter with death. The head goes to the cemetery, the grave of his dead sister and is arrested for desecration of grave and taken to the police station without being believed that is the chief of police. Surreal, another police chief in place and both talk about the work and reinforcement in the zoo, which takes him to visit him, only to find the Napoleonic scene of a beginning, given to understand through the offscreen sound . The film ends with a close to an ostrich.
This last scene is the most descriptive of what Buñuel poses throughout the film, which at one time, with a single character, we passed over countless stories without development or end, only what we caught by chance.
stylistic features:
The three films selected are the property of not work the same way, then an analysis of the elements:
-Use the camera
:
Buñuel is using the camera feature fairly traditional, balanced by his strange way of seeing the world. Presents always along the films viewed, the same use of this element, presenting the least amount of shots to the characters, using a lot of moving camera that passes from one character to another in the same plane, describing how natural as possible the environment and situations, making it not feel the camera, along with European classical school, and from "The Exterminating Angel" these elements are always present, strongly uses the introduction to the action through movement camera. For example, in "Belle de Jour" in the scene where Severine is talking with Pierre in a restaurant, rather than plane match and reverse, shows the conversation in the same plane, and when to the other characters are added to the conversation, the camera takes a dolly-back until everyone is square and the conversation consists of four characters in a single plane, without the use of the resource countershot plane typical of Hollywood.
This is also much more present and more beautifully throughout the film on several occasions, when speaking with Severine Pierre, he sat at the table, the camera takes middle ground, and then, with camera in hand, move around the table to reach it and compose the whole image in a plane that has both and then, still uncut, follows her as she makes walk in and out of frame. Also on the brothel when Adolf is undressing and she escapes to the door, the camera takes in the detail level of both feet, then follow up action to a medium shot of both bed and falling into the hands.
This concept of the plane sequence is one of the most used by the author, making it almost a narrative concept in "The Phantom of Liberty" starting the story after the story of Napoleon, the camera follows a girl on bike and gently and almost imperceptibly becomes a ladies sitting in a place they read the story. In this film many of the twists of history to another are made using this resource.
The use of medium focal lenses makes all the flamboyant scenery, is seeing the most natural way and not distracting from the action. In these three films Buñuel uses characters high economic and social level, big houses and lots of material display, thanks to the cosmetic use of the camera, you feel completely natural.
The use of depth of field in the films, present in almost all levels generates the viewer to look at the picture you want to see, you find that all actions are important, and that all fields are free, since there are always actions or circumstances occurring in the background, for example in "Belle de jour" when Severine is presented in front of his first client, Adolf, she remains outside the scope, when other workers enclose Adolf, who is sitting in a chair offering money and flirting, Severine is outside the group in the background, nervous and embarrassed, avoiding them, but then moves to the center of the action when the client calls the note.
This element is much more evident in "The Exterminating Angel" where lots of characters and interactions between them are almost always in games in which a single plane there are many actions in second and third visual fields. This is very clear in the film and is virtually indispensable as being a very claustrophobic place, a small space for the number of people that are there, so there is always action in second and third fields, eg a moment of the film we see the conversation of two individuals, in the second field we see people come and go in a room that is behind them, then we found out that it was adapted as a bath room.
-The use of sound
:
in the films viewed, the use of sound is quite specific, Buñuel refuses to use music as a narrative / emotional, and that in fact the only music in mind the film is diegetic, with sources clearly visible on-screen characters or interpret as the case of the police chief's sister in "The Phantom of Liberty" who plays the piano while she was naked, or the piano that is played in "The Exterminating Angel," where the characters are those who play and play music.
This may be due to the large amount of dialogue that develops over the films, in which it is they who operate the history and present ideologies and feelings, as is the case with "The Angel of Death" where all the characters are constantly talking with each other and the history and conflicts are present and obvious or justified in any way when the characters mention them and explain.
A resource quite interesting and original (like almost all the resources of Bunuel) is the use of audio-over to represent the dreams of each character in one of the night scenes where the characters try to sleep. It is very interesting since it raises the fear felt by cries of pain and loud sounds that change and are justified as a dream when you show a closeup of each character who dreams. In "Belle de jour" this feature is less obvious, since the story is somewhat more realistic than previous ones, so the character's questions lie in their own fantasies.
This contrasts with the provisions of the Hollywood cinema, which usually dream scenes are with a different aesthetic, and specific showing that they are dreams and clearly shows that character belongs.
-use mounting :
assembly use within each scene is pretty classic, which is paramount presentation of events and situations, where the invisible and mounting fluid is the main thing to avoid breaking or inattention on the actions of the characters. But this element is broken enough when it comes to the union of scenes, for example in "Belle de jour" breaking the continuity when dreams occur Severine, and presented as the next scene, but have no narrative coherence history and not presented in the classic form that shows the dreams, that is, before each scene we do not see her sleep, or occur after dark, and the events portrayed in every dream is not presented in the classic dreamlike, and that within the universe Buñuel, everything happens naturally, and it is the viewer must infer that the dreams and feelings of characters, place the scene in the broad context of history, and can only be justified as dreams, clarifying doubts, near the climax the film, when Severine tells her husband that since the accident has ceased to have dreams, and only to break the context again, the dream is mixed with reality.
In "The Phantom of Liberty", the assembly key element remains invisible, because this is one of the elements that play with the viewer and confuse the time to move from one story to another, as is so subtle and light change, which only can see that's another story when we see that we have changed the characters, as he refuses the use of contextualization
In "The Exterminating Angel," the brief use of alternate assembly puts us in the world "real" Somehow, to narrate that on the outside of the house is known that they are locked and can not enter from outside.
Although specific times of the films, Buñuel uses an assembly line usually invisible, which lightens the heavy intellectual enough of each film.
-Use
art:
The value that meets the art design is extremely functional and fully narrative, as it is thanks to this concept as a spectator you can contextualize the characters and know their social and economic . From the first look at the room in "the angel ..." we know that the house is of millionaires, to see the piano we know that there is always fun, to see how many know that the dining chairs that is not a unique situation and occur regularly. This is a fundamental value in the surrealist film, because if not contextualized the characters will not be able to know what is wrong with them, nor could we identify the surreal situation.
-Using actions:
The value highlighted in the previous section is also reflected in the characterizations by the cast, as each character is faithfully what is, the papers are not forced, the doctor in "the angel ..." remains a doctor despite the hopelessness of the situation and behave and think scientifically and rationally, just as you would a doctor, in fact if we catch a characters in a situation different we could not know that they are not what they represent. This quality along with the art design are paramount to the development of all the stories in "The Ghost ..." so that we can put in each context without wasting time on stories or explanations desconcentrarían and would only lose the primary objective
Buñuel in his films the characters often gives a very clear sense, and observe, as is the case with "The Exterminating Angel" and "The Phantom of Liberty", we realize that the protagonists are trapped director in the universe, as always realize and notice things that are wrong or unusual. In "Angel ..." all the characters know that there is no physical reason to be caught, so they question and get scared because of it. In "The Ghost ..." realize the inconsistencies and the accused and the inferiority complex, as exemplified in many scenes, such as when the postman comes at midnight with bike in hand to deliver a letter to the man who can not sleep, realize this was not a dream and inferiority complex to a level that is what your doctor says.
-use of the symbol.
Another point to note is the use of symbols. In the film more contemporary use of the symbols is obvious and conventional way, ie if the main character is a woman who is faced with a conflict that does address the loss of innocence, she keeps it safe and notes from time to time a figure, a toy that reminds him of his childhood, but this toy makes sense only for her, and placed in the film after contextualize and make it clear that is what it represents, in other words the symbol the object that remembers and keeps in mind that he was innocent in a past time, but if that same toy we present it in another context and with other characters, the toy as a symbol is lost. In the film the symbol plays a role analogous to that of painting, that is, gets its functionality through the image itself and is not verbalized, and that is what evokes the character or the story that gives value.
Buñuel For symbols that are already the default for the rest of humanity, such as religious images, they lose their value and become common and unimportant objects, as is the case with "The Phantom of Liberty "where the priest play cards and bet with religious figures. But however, gives a symbolic value to something that is new to the characters that they are not given the time for familiarization, as is the case of the metal box as "the angel ..." as in "Belle de jour", where virtually the same box represents two totally different things and you never know with certainty what it is, but you know what it evokes.
In "Belle de jour" box shows the customer the East and shows it to Anais and Severine, but never mention what you have, but we know, given the context and the reactions of the characters, that whatever inside there is evil and dirty, and is the representation of extreme perversion of Severine, since not knowing exactly what it is, is the public who makes the idea of \u200b\u200bwhat's inside, making it the symbol of the most perverse, but only for those who observe, because the dirt for a person is not necessarily so for another.
In "The angel ..." box opposite but serves the same way, ie serves to symbolize the only thing that would make the situation tolerable for the person, that pleasure is only enjoyable individually and can not be shared, and the objectivity of the spectator that this object is. In the same way is that a woman has chicken legs in your wallet and alludes to them as "the key that opens the door to nowhere."
Analysis of films 
