‎The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) directed by Luis Buñuel • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

1972 ‘Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie’ Directed by Luis Buñuel

In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined.

Fernando Rey Delphine Seyrig Paul Frankeur Bulle Ogier Stéphane Audran Jean-Pierre Cassel Julien Bertheau Claude Piéplu Michel Piccoli François Maistre Pierre Maguelon Maxence Mailfort Milena Vukotic Maria Gabriella Maione Muni Georges Douking Christian Baltauss Bernard Musson Jacques Rispal Robert le Béal Robert Benoît Anne-Marie Deschodt Ellen Bahl Jean-Michel Dhermay Jean Degrave Sébastien Floche Claude Jaeger Pierre Lary Alix Mahieux Show All…

101 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★★ 2

97/100

When I first heard the title, I thought, "Finally! Someone's going to tell the truth about the bourgeoisie!" What a disappointment. It would be hard to imagine a less fair or, or accurate portrait.

Hard to quantify the cumulative satirical force this movie brings to bear, as it maintains the same level of genial drollery from start to finish. I always start out mildly amused, wind up gobsmacked...but it seems entirely possible that shuffling the scenes at random would have much the same effect. It's just a single pointed joke that gets funnier and funnier, abetted by a sextet of actors who refrain from any winking or nudging—Bulle Ogier in particular achieves maximum vacuity without calling attention to herself…
Review by Jonathan White ★★★★½ 10

What can I say; I think I’ve found a new favourite director after a single film.

Buñuel has the same high regard for both his characters and audience alike. Like a cat with a mouse, he toys with them; tosses them up in the air, bats them about a while, then sits back and watches them wobble and stumble about; all the time his tail gingerly flicking. Just when you think you have your bearings; and escape into a lush field of meaning is within grasp; he pounces again.

I’ve read that Buñuel was an accomplished hypnotist in his youth, and that he believed that the movies were a form of hypnotism. I believe it; I’m still in a trance.
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 1

90/100

A winding, inescapable nightmare separated by emptiness. If this wasn't so harshly hilarious it would be impossible to take in, mainly because entitlement doesn't seem like a topic to showcase without a certain measure of levity. Its structure, beginning like an awkward play of misunderstandings, soon dissolves into a satirical depiction of grating realities, utilizing the energy of chaos as a contrast between the consistently still and contained imagery. Even the most surrealistic incident within this dreamlike series of events carries an unflinching eye, viewing all the strange and despicable behavior like a curious animal; wide-eyed and casually attentive.

Don't you hate it when restaurants run out of water?
Review by PTAbro ★★★ 18

Another Buñuel and again I must rhyme;
Appropriate since it's much weirder this time.
Though unlike before where things start with the feast
In ...Charm it seems eating's like sex to a priest:
Forbidden, taboo, and declined against will
Though suffering fools keep attempting their fill.

A sextet of dilettantes (much like before)
Discuss what is proper, indulgent, and more.
But there where 'society' deemed what is right,
Cocaine/infidelity/murder's our plight.
A strange set of morals; I guess that's the key
To poke fun at people more, well, discreetly.

Their wealth and their social esteem's much less clear
And so is their odd way of showing good cheer.
Confounded by knocking at every turn,
That damned door's bad luck, yet…
Review by Dirk van Eck ★★★ 3

Christopher Nolan eat your heart out, because The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie has an even wilder dream-in-dream-in-dream-in-dream construction than Inception. The entire film revolves around sextet of middle-class friend who attempt to dine together, but who are repeatedly interrupted by the most mildly absurd circumstances that are nevertheless nonchalantly accepted by each of them, spawning a bizarre pseudo-world that constantly fools the audience. Starting off as merely amusing, the joke of the unachievable dinner plans builds and builds and builds into something much larger that gets funnier with every twist and turn. The same formula applies to the ‘side-stories’, such as the one centred on the alleged deprivation of the fictitious Republic of Miranda of which one of the…
Review by Lise ★★★★ 9

Holy bejeezus, what an odd film. I mean truly odd. Not in the Lynch way, though, but in some completely new way. Sometimes it plays out like a Monty Python skit. Sometimes it feels like French New Wave. Sometimes it feels like a laugh track is missing. Sometimes it comes this close to slapstick but without the pay-off. It is definitely satire, though, that much I can say with confidence. The film pokes fun at so many things it could be (and probably has been) the subject of many a PhD dissertation.

I honestly can't write a review of it, at least not without spending way too much time I don't have right now reading about it.

All I can say is it is truly odd, and compelling and engaging and I loved it. I really loved it.

Recent reviews

Review by Clay Black ★★★½

Dispite multiple attempts, a group of corrupt socialité are unable to have dinner together. Surreal story tearing the rigidness off its 'Victorian' characters à la 'Exterminating Angel'.
Review by tdwightdavis ★★★★

I didn’t mean to watch another movie that I’d classify as “some weird shit” but here we are. Three days in a row of surreal, weird films.

You know that scene in Home Alone where Kevin sits down to eat his mac and cheese and then doesn’t get to? This is that but for an hour and a half, in French, and with dream logic with a heavy amount of Inception thrown in.

I’m not even going to try to recount the plot. 6 friends keep sitting down to try to eat a meal together but keep getting interrupted. The movie starts off slow but builds momentum as it goes, getting more and more surreal and outlandish and weird, all…
Review by Hind ★★★

In few words, this film was purely satirical, and to me it was only jocose in its portrayal of the falsely built 'charm' those people have.
Nevertheless, I did admire the insinuations of how most people in power tend to use their social status to conceal the vile acts they commit such as drug dealing, sexual molestation, cheating, and disparaging other people and classes.
I don't think I've found it a masterpiece like people think of it, rather, it was a funny, almost cringe-worthy allegory about the bourgeoisie class.
Review by Claire 👹 ★★★★½

Eat the rich :^)
Review by Garret ★★★★★

9/10
It was definitely a lot funnier the second time around. I need to get my hands on some more Bunuel projects because this might be one of my favorite movies.
Review by Jalmosdoen ★★★★★

A great combination of political satire and psychoanalysis. This movie beautifully dissects the bourgeoise mindset through 1) their interactions with other parts of the class system in the context of eating and 2) through the dream sequences which can be interpreted as exposing their fears and desires.
Review by eddie330 ★★★½ 2

10 Word Review:

Repetitive gimmickry used for scathing allegory. Aggressive, somewhat overbearing, zaniness.
Review by Ryan Moncrief ★★★½

A less penetrable Buñuel film than THE PHANTOM LIBERTY or BELLE DE JOUR, but entertaining nonetheless. I’m eager to give it another watch.
Review by Charles ★★★★

1st Viewing (7/16/18) // Solid 4