The Phantom of Liberty (1974)

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

The acting in this movie is really good.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

There is no denying that "The Phantom of Liberty" is a flat out WEIRD movie filled with surrealist gags and head scratching visuals, but does that make it a good movie exactly? It depends on whom you ask, many film buffs are certainly huge fans of Bunuel's odd, quirky, and mindbending style while the casual viewer may simply dismiss his work as being pretentious nonsense disguised as "art". Personally, I side with the former view, and while watching "The Phantom of Liberty' I gleefully relished in Bunuel's bizarre glory. This certainly is not a film for those seeking a clear definable plot or a series of light, cliché jokes; instead, it is a wild ride through Bunuel's vast imagination. It is a series of comical scenes, much like Bunuel's previous work "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", rather than being a film with any real plot. Similarly to Linklater's "Slacker", the film just follows character after character once the camera seems to get bored with them and their comical vignette is done. Otherwise, however, this film is nothing like "Slacker" and, instead, mostly mirrors every gem of surrealist comedy one could think of. It sort of works as a culmination of everything Bunuel has made as he shows off his signature style, aware that he is approaching the finale of his career. Sense is thrown out of the window and is replaced with ostriches, toilet bowls, and architectural imagery that is perceived as being pornographic. Bunuel playfully mocks religion as always, while also breaking countless taboos, stuffing his film with just enough violence and sex to both shock and amuse (often at the same time).

One of Luis Bunuel's most free-form and purely Surrealist films, consisting of a series of only vaguely related episodes - most famously, the dinner party scene where people sit on lavatories round a dinner table on, occasionally retiring to a little room to eat.Luis Bunuel said, "Chance governs all things; necessity, which is far from having the same purity, comes only later. If I have a soft spot for any one of my movies, it would be for The Phantom of Liberty, because it tries to work out just this theme." I know I am in the minority, but I do not quite see the appeal of Bunuel's later films. I love his early work, such as "Age d'Or" and "un Chien Andalou", but the later more political films... I do not necessary appreciate them. This one and its partner, "Discreet Charm", I just cannot identify with... maybe a second viewing?

To begin, I had the opportunity to watch this movie as a student in a foreign film studies class. The professor literally spoke nothing of this film and just said to watch. Then the roller coaster I rode was amazing. Every scene just kept slapping me in different directions putting me in a state of exciting confusion. I understood nothing during my first watch. There was an ending scene where the director gave the audience just an ostrich looking towards the distance while gunshots rang in the background. We had a weekend gap before the professor gave us some context in the movie but that whole weekend just had me thinking. Wondering daily what the movie meant to the point where I lectured all my friends on it looking for something, a window of clarity. Then the day came and then he explained the movies point, to open the audience to the ideas that complete freedom can be dangerous and that you shouldn't take everything at face value, in a sense, question everything. This started a domino effect on the past memories of my life. In particular one English teacher that I had for three years in high school. His teaching methods were very different. He would break random pointing sticks and toss markers at the board, as well as slapping on random desk through out the class period. This caused me to just disregard him as crazy. When I saw this movie a second time it literally just brought me back to the class, and it answered the questions I never knew I had. This professor showed us a story that explained Plato's allegory of the cave. To those who aren't familiar with it, in summary, prisoners are chained up in a cave facing a wall for their entire lives. Behind them is a torch that reflected the shadows of those who passed by and for them, all they knew were the sounds of commotion and the images of the shadows. They knew nothing more. One day, a prisoner manages to escape the cave and witnesses the world. Sees buildings and people and society. To him its something amazing and never ever before seen. The only problem is when he comes back to tell the other prisoners but they just see him as crazy. Talking about things that to them seems impossible. This movie did that to me. It helped me escape my cave. After I saw this movie I began to see things differently and approach my decisions in life with more confidence because really, things aren't as big or as hard as our minds have been hardwired to believe they are. This movie made me feel free by the end of it. Made my doubts that I had in high school seem okay. It even inspired me to write some new stories to maybe make films about one day based on the ideas I had that society would see as just a teenager being a teenager. I am really proud to be human with ideas and just view points, and now I just flip things and look at them in different perspectives. I feel this movie exemplifies what it means to be an artist. Showing the world in ways that are not always the norm, which to me is a great from of expression. This movie has greatly opened my mind and I recommend it to any one in confusing times in their life. I really wish I had seen this movie earlier because it really just gave my weird teenage years of doubt purpose and meaning. I finally feel okay to be myself and express my art in the way I choose. In my acting and filming I am not afraid of my opinions anymore, and Im not afraid to break the rules in the art world. I am finally out of the cave.. and loving every minute of it.

The Phantom of Liberty movie show to me how important surrealism is in order to make a movie successful. It really made me feel that I was leaving it while it was been played, but also it goes beyond reality because in the scenes what the characters where doing was something unexpected, weird, not normal, or perhaps disrespectful if someone sees it that way. Moreover, we're not used to lived that way. We see the world differently and we manage personal y private things differently. In fact what really catch my attention was the scene where they all sit together to "eat". It wasn't really like that, it was the opposite, they suppose to eat instead of doing their needs. That really make laugh in a way because I can't imagine myself doing that. In other hand, The phantom of Liberty was really a piece of art even thought it got me kind of confuse. This is a film where you can start asking question to yourself and building all this thoughts and ideas. This is where you can see a real director, art and high level of thinking of Buñuel.