THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE (63)

Directed by: Luis Bunuel (1977)

Starring: Fernando Rey, Carole Bouquet, Angela Molina

The Pitch: A rich, middle-aged man is obsessed with a beautiful young woman - but she keeps leading him on then rejecting his advances.

Theo Sez: Peripheral greatness can't quite balance undernourished, even slightly dull centre : plot winds down, and Rey's repeated arousal and frustration is an elegant joke that wears out its welcome. You might call it an 'old man's movie', though not (just) in the dismissive sense of being dry and low on energy : it's a film from an old man's worldview, sex as the tantalising "object of desire", lost and unattainable (one scene finds our hero literally locked out of love-making, watching impotently as the young couple perform), the world a place of constant, irrational dangers : random terrorist attacks form a backdrop to the action, making also the point that the world runs on various kinds of terrorism - political for the unseen attackers, emotional for the heroine who seduces then rejects, financial for the rich man who uses his cash to extort her affections. Above all an 'old man's movie' in the best sense, looking at the action through sardonic, all-knowing eyes, setting out the harshness in human relationships in a civilised way, without making a song and dance about it : Bunuel fills it with sidelong gags, like the heroine played by two different actresses, or the mouse caught in a trap (a quick offscreen snapping sound) as Rey buys the girl from her mother, or the butler who wanders on the fringes of the action, occasionally adding his own comments ("when you're dealing with women, don't forget your stick"). The framing device early on - four strangers meet in a train compartment, each turning out to be connected to the others - recalls (though of course anticipates) Raul Ruiz' arch games-playing, but the film is more than playful : it's a cynical, amused philosophical thesis where everything is power, alternately given and withheld. Wry, cool and deceptively simple ; shame it's more fun to think about than actually sit through.