The final film of the mezmerizing Luis Buñuel. this is the reason i love film. what can we do with film. well, we can inject it with CGI, we can use torture and violence, or a bunch of naked people. thats what our film has been infected with today, the previous reasons that make me squirm in my chair. this, from the first shot overwhelmed me with its pure and organic form of filmmaking-and i feel clean again. this is a breath of fresh air in the middle of the mess of our modern day film. it is real. every bit of it. it is a rather complex story but makes it quite simple. i love it's audacity, verociousness and insight. we are taken places-another reason i love foregin cinema-and we learn about people. i dont give a damn about blue people running and jumping around and fighting off the "Big White Man", making alot of $$$$ and then seeing the remmake/sequal of them doing the exact same thing. this was a box office flop, not a critical one though. i want to know about people. this is what this film shows us: people. it is a brave film, but so original and unique. certain styles in which i have never seen before are presented and this was from the 70's. the French have a knack for telling stories with the most ingenuity and sincerity. i have seen it countless times.
Fernando Rey plays our rich widow/playboy going on a trip back to Paris, his hometown, from Seville, Spain. He has just dumped a pale of water on a young woman's head and the other passengers are curious as to why. he then tells the story of how he mat the girl named Conchita (played by both Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina) when she began working for him as a maid. he makes a move on her and she runs away the next morning. this happens many times where they happen to run into each other in Switzerland, some apartment in France, an upscale restaraunt, and in Seville. he meets the mother in several of these encounters who is deeply religious and in a lot of financial trouble. he tries to marry her which she thinks her is "buying" her. he buys her houses, gives her mother money buys her clothes but she is too temperamental. sometimes he finds her stripping for tourists in which sends him off the deep end. she seems bipolar in which the two different actresses who play Conchita come in. Both actresses play two different sides of Conchita: sexy, daring and calm. and then the other: fiery, wild and daring. this is an ingenious idea that Buñel actually used as a joke but then decided to use it. there is so much more to the story that really needs to be seen and not explained. I love this film. what i took from it is how we as humans become attached to material objects who/that turn out to not be as good as we thought or the inside is not as good as the outside. this happens frequntly in out society. that's what makes a film great: how well it reflects society. can we relate or connect with the characters. and if you dont, there's something wrong with your picture. this is a controversial film for it's graphic nudity and violence but i think that show's the mark of a true artist. i love the controversy-Lars von Trier for example. this is what we need to integrate into our film again-not controversy-but realism. the color of the film was magnificient. i enjoyed the costume design and how rich it was. the acting was excellent. the "Conchitas" were so strong and had such conviction which really brought out their character. Rey was excellent as well. he plays a flustered and frustrated old man really well. im not really sure what else to say. i think that this is a work of art and Criterion Collection rescued it from the underworld. i would like to see the first film told in flashback. now that style is used constantly-always running out of ideas. this handled the tecnique deftly. This really is a masterpeice of psychological analysis.
The "Conchitas"
| Academy Awards, USA | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 | Nominated | Oscar | Best Foreign Language Film Spain |
| Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium Luis Buñuel Jean-Claude Carrière | |||
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