What a queer film this is. It appears to be about the hypocrisy and apathy of the middle classes, particularly their sexual hypocrisy, as expressed through the infatuation of a rich business man (of a certain age) with a young and beautiful Spanish dancer.The hero, Mathieu, spends the film time trying to get Conchita into bed and more specifically trying to achieve penetration. Sometimes she seems up for this, sometimes she doesn't. In any case there is always a problem when they get down to it, much to Mathieu's frustration. This obsesses him to such a degree that he is almost oblivious to the acts of terrorism that are happening all around him. It's not just in the paper, on the radio and on the PA in the shopping centre. He's mugged in a park, there's a shooting on his doorstep, he's held at gunpoint and his car stolen.To Mathieu this matters little compared with his ongoing bedroom antics with Conchita. Conchita is an unpredictable woman. Is she deliberately torturing Mathieu? In the end Mathieu thinks so and things turn violent. Even then, they remain somehow bound together.
How did this film come to be so critically lauded? Is it simply due to the crude gimmick of having Conchita played by two actresses who switch between and within scenes? Oddly this quirk loses its strangeness as the film progresses and really adds nothing. The two actresses don't portray different sides of the same person (there are no fully realised characters in this film) as has been suggested. Conchita is as changeable and contradictory regardless of who she is played by. The film in general feels thrown together.It looks and plays like a mix of early silent comedy, 70's soft porn and daytime soap - but not in a good way.
This is the broadest satire and not particularly insightful or funny. It has surreal touches. Is Bunuel messing with us?
How did this film come to be so critically lauded? Is it simply due to the crude gimmick of having Conchita played by two actresses who switch between and within scenes? Oddly this quirk loses its strangeness as the film progresses and really adds nothing. The two actresses don't portray different sides of the same person (there are no fully realised characters in this film) as has been suggested. Conchita is as changeable and contradictory regardless of who she is played by. The film in general feels thrown together.It looks and plays like a mix of early silent comedy, 70's soft porn and daytime soap - but not in a good way.
This is the broadest satire and not particularly insightful or funny. It has surreal touches. Is Bunuel messing with us?