That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)
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100% of critics liked it
(26 reviews) -
89% of users liked it
(6,954 ratings)
Adapted from Pierre Louys' 1898 novel La Femme et le Pantin, That Obscure Object of Desire is the 30th and final film from the great Luis Buñuel. Recounted in flashback to a group of railway travellers, the story wryly details the romantic perils of Mathieu (Buñuel favorite Fernando Rey), a… More Adapted from Pierre Louys' 1898 novel La Femme et le Pantin, That Obscure Object of Desire is the 30th and final film from the great Luis Buñuel. Recounted in flashback to a group of railway travellers, the story wryly details the romantic perils of Mathieu (Buñuel favorite Fernando Rey), a wealthy, middle-aged French sophisticate who falls desperately in love with his 19-year-old former chambermaid Conchita. Thus begins a surreal game of sexual cat-and-mouse, with Mathieu obsessively attempting to win the girl's affections as she manipulates his carnal desires, each vying to gain absolute control of the other. Brimming with the subversive wit which characterizes all of Buñuel's finest work, That Obscure Object of Desire takes satiric aim at a decadent, decaying society riddled by political unrest and moral bankruptcy. The picture is absurdist even in its casting -- Rey's dialogue was dubbed by the French actor Michel Piccoli, while the two-faced, hot-and-cold Conchita is played, logically enough, by two different actresses (Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina, respectively), with the character's dialogue spoken by yet a third performer. The same Louys novel was also filmed by Josef von Sternberg in 1935 as the Marlene Dietrich vehicle The Devil Is a Woman, and again in 1959 as Julien Duvivier's La Femme et le Pantin, starring Brigitte Bardot. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
- Directed By
- Luis Buñuel
- Written By
- Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carriere
- Genres
- Drama, Comedy
R,
- In Theaters
- Aug 17, 1977 Wide
- Studio
- First Artists
Critic Reviews
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Vincent Canby, New York Times
With an effortlessness matched by no other director today, Buñuel creates a vision of a world as logical as a theorem, as mysterious as a dream, and as funny as a vaudeville gag.
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Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News
One of the director's later works, That Obscure Object of Desire, examines the puzzle of sexual politics.
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Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
A mature commentary on the invisible line between passion and absurdity -- erotic, political, and religious.
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Budd Wilkins, Slant Magazine
Lionsgate does right by the swan song of one of cinema's least compromising, most iconoclastic mavericks, with a pristine new transfer and a robustly informative selection of spanking new extras.
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Phil Villarreal, OK! Magazine
Luis Bunuel's final film is also one of his finest efforts.
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Cast
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Fernando Rey
as Mathieu
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Carole Bouquet
as Conchita
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Ángela Molina
as Conchita
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Julien Bertheau
as Judge
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André Weber
as Valet
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Milena Vukotic
as Traveller
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Pierre Pieral
as Psychologist
- María Asquerino
- André Lacombe
- Muni
- Bernard Musson
- Isabelle Sadoyan
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Ellen Bahl
as Manolita
- Jacques Debary
- Jean-Claude Montalban
