One of Buñuel's last films, this is superficially far removed from the overt graphic surrealism of his early years, with a bunch of well-to-do middle class types pontificating pompously on society while arranging dinner dates with each other. That is, until it becomes clear that the characters are stuck together ad infinitum, will always do nothing else and will never get to finish anything, whether that be a meal, a sexual act or even a train of thought. Hence, the surrealism in Buñuel's later work has come to serve a political purpose beyond merely shocking us out of our complacency: it's a means to an end rather than just an end in itself. The bland repetition of the characters' rituals is a more savage critique of the self-consuming ineffectuality of the moneyed chattering classes than the full-frontal assaults of the earlier works.
So, there's certainly intellectual substance here. Unfortunately, it's weighed down with too many unfocusedly daft scenes and pointless whimsical characters to really work as precision satire. Yes, it got the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, but that has to be seen more as a lifetime's work award for the director.
6/10
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