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"The best explanation of this film is that, from the standpoint of pure reason, there is no explanation.'' So said Bunuel about The Exterminating Angel, a film that is often hailed as one of the Spanish master’s greatest. While Bunuel said it of this specific film, much the same could be said of many of his late, surrealist works; and much the same has been said about all of the post-modern cinematic masterpieces that began flourishing in the early ‘60s like Bergman’s Persona, Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad or Godard’s Contempt.

The Exterminating Angel’s plot is simple and revolves around a group of bourgeois guests at a dinner party whom, afterwards, find themselves unable to leave the room they've gathered in at the end of the day. Bunuel builds his story discreetly; light chatter abounds among the various guests, niceties are repeatedly exchanged, and elegance and manners are the order of the day. But even early on Bunuel sneaks his surrealistic touches in. The servants leave the house “like rats leaving a sinking ship”, a bear-cub is lurking around the kitchen premises, not to mention three lambs (a religious allusion, perhaps?). But these are mere oddities that exist in a realm of normalcy, until the “event” occurs.

The Exterminating Angel is, above all else, some of Bunuel’s best and most mordant satire. Its greatness lies in Bunuel’s refusal to explain, while ,with acute perspicacity, he orchestrates the disintegration of this group. Here, Bunuel as director gets to play the role of a god he didn’t believe in by arbitrarily putting his cast into an incomprehensible, absurd situation that violates the laws of human will. By slicing off a section of society he’s effectively able to document the retrogradation of civilization, slicing through its masks and personas and reverting it back to its hominid roots. By the end of the evening, the niceties and elegancies are gone, replaced by bitterness, hatred, and superstition. The guests, of course, seek to explain the situation, but, much like complaining about the weather, none can do anything about it.

If the film’s situation defies logical explanation it just as equally provokes analytical thought and interpretive theory. One could approach it from a scientific-sociological point of view; the fidelity of universal laws allows us to fulfill the unwritten social contracts that hold people of the same classes together. One could approach it from a philosophical point-of-view; man’s sense of free will is determined by his ability to choose and act, but if you take away the ability to act, the compass of free-will is constricted inside a defined limit. One could read it metafictionally; an artist is someone who is able to freely manipulate his fictional creations outside the laws of reality, and through his own act of will he’s able to take away that of his characters. There’s also an almost Kieslowskian metaphysical angle which “resolves” the problem in which all of the characters, after an indeterminate amount of time being imprisoned, find themselves situated in the exact positions as the first day in which they decided to stay. In repeating the actions of that day, and deciding to leave, they suddenly find themselves able to. Like some kind of sick experiment, the rats find themselves only able to eat the cheese without getting shocked once they’ve re-completed the whole maze.

If the film has any flaws its in the fact that Bunuel was never a master technician. He mostly eschewed visual flair and expressiveness for economy and allowing the content to speak for itself. Bunuel was also less a storyteller than a keen observer of humanity. The cast is a bit too large for us to approach them as anything but social representations. While that allows us to view them at a comedic distance (“comedy is filmed in long shot, tragedy in close-up”), it can also be a bit dull for those who don’t feel in on the joke.

To Bunuel’s credit, he takes a much more playful and humorous tone than does his contemporaries. The film certainly lacks the knife-in-the-eye drama of Persona and the suffocating atmosphere of Marienbad. Bunuel seems to take great delight in toying with the follies of humanity. Bunuel was essentially a comic of visual observance, using his camera to make jokes that could make you laugh as much as think. Surely we’re supposed to chuckle at the fact that a severed hand comes alive and creeps across the floor like some kind of murderous spider. Surely the bear’s freedom is a kind of cosmic joke leveled at a humanity who thinks it has life figured out.

Of course, we also have Bunuel getting in that last pot-shot at established religion ala L’age D’or in which the same dilemma is reenacted inside a church on a much larger scale. The especially stinging parting shot is of a group of lambs filing into the church, surely waiting to be slaughtered, echoing the action from earlier. If the lambs are a sign of Jesus, then Bunuel’s wicked sense of humor reaches new heights here. If the bulk of the film was about the piecemeal breakdown of the hypocrisy of the bourgeois, then what more potent parting comment could Bunuel leave us with than the idea that religious people would slay the very symbol they profess to subscribe to in order to survive?

Throughout his career, Bunuel had three obsessions, two being religion and class. His third obsession was his chosen mode of expression: surrealism. Inevitably, his best films seem to mix the three in provocative and thoroughly original ways. While not typically considered one of his best, The Milky Way is yet another masterpiece that deserves to stand alongside the likes of The Discreet Charms of the Bourgeoisie and Belle de Jour. It’s as direct as the old master ever got when it came to dealing with religion and, specifically, the Roman Catholic Church. Bunuel himself was raised a strict Jesuit but eventually renounced the faith; summing it up with one of his most famous quotes “Thank God I’m an atheist!” But even after leaving the church behind he never lost his fascination with the religion, and the Milky Way seems like the culmination of everything he ever learned about Christianity, Catholicism, and Theology in general. But it’s executed in that coolly humorous and subtly scathing way that only someone with Bunuel’s artistry could manage. Or, as Francois Truffaut said about him: “Bunuel is a cheerful pessimist, not given to despair, but he has a skeptical mind...Like the writers of the eighteenth century, [he] teaches us how to doubt.”

The film is ostensibly about two modern and poor wayfarers travelling to Spain to the tomb of the Apostle James. Pierre (Peter) is the older, bearded, and more pious man while Jean (John) is the younger skeptic. The opening text informs us of the history of the history behind the missing body of the Apostle James and how in most European languages The Milky Way is also known as the “Road to St. James”. Of course, this is immediately interrupted by the line “Do you think these bastards will ever stop?” Superficially referring to cars on the road but surely alluding to the hypocrisies of the church as well. The film plays like a surrealist Pilgrim’s Progress as Pierre and Jean’s odyssey seems to not just slip in and out of disconnected episodes, but in and out of time periods and places. One is tempted to merely sum up the diverse range of their encounters – from Jesus and his disciples, to a young and despondent Lucifer, to the Marquis de Sade, to the Virgin Mary, to various popes including a trial that is executing heretics – but to do so is to diminish the richness of Bunuel’s brilliant allegory.

Of all Bunuel’s films, The Milky Way is perhaps the most seamless when it comes to his ability to slip in and out of multiple realities, perpetually existing in a state of spatio-temporal limbo. That state of reality flux is perhaps the most interesting, because while Bunuel was known as a surrealist he largely achieved his effect by situating the unreal in otherwise completely naturalistic settings. Bunuel didn’t craft his surrealism through cinematic, technical wizardry or creative art direction like Fellini, nor through the psychological distortions and sideshow oddities of Lynch. Rather, he usually maintained a narrative that was tethered to reality and would then insert events, people, or situations that clashed with that reality. And in a film that Bunuel himself proclaimed was the first of a trilogy about “The Search for Truth” it’s appropriate that nature, reality, illusion, fantasy, and religion (which attempts to reconcile the conflicts between them) trip so seamlessly side-by-side.

Bunuel called The Milky Way the first in a loose trilogy about “the search for truth”, along with Discreet Charm and The Phantom of Liberty, but while those films feature a much more typical Bunuelian sense of humor along with distinct and absurd events, The Milky Way is much more challenging overall. Make no mistake; the film is difficult, dense, ambiguous (in many respects), and at times utterly confusing. Much of this is due to Bunuel’s particular focus on the history of Christian heresies and heretics. Most of his references and allusions will be completely impenetrable to everyone except those that have studied the history of these themes along with the great mysteries of Christianity. But the film’s brilliance lies in its intricate structure which can only be examined once one has a sure grasp of precisely what Bunuel is tackling. That structure reveals the method by which Bunuel went about tackling “the search for truth” in this particular film.

Specifically, the film is about how the Biblical text creates mysteries and paradoxes, how conflicts arise from differing interpretations of those mysteries, how individuals and groups seem to arbitrarily come to conclusions about the answers, and how after determining what is scripture they seek to abolish and annihilate any dissenting views by proclaiming them heresy. It’s the relationship between these various stages that Bunuel is presenting in interlocking ways through what otherwise might seem disconnected episodes. An early scene perfectly represents the first few stages of this cycle, as the two pilgrims come upon a small inn where a priest is arguing to an officer that Christ’s body isn’t contained in the bread but through transubstantiation literally becomes the bread. But near the end of the scene he suddenly has a change of mind and decides that the body is merely just contained in the bread. When the officer points out this contradiction, the priest throws coffee in his face, and an absurd siren interrupts the proceedings as men show up to take the Priest away to an asylum. Throughout the film, Bunuel seems especially fascinated by how people can argue for theories that attempt to reconcile absurd spiritual paradoxes as if they’re certain they have the right answer.

While Bunuel was never known as a virtuosic cinematic technician, he did over time manage to create a style that was extremely economic – reminiscent of the great craftsman of classic Hollywood – and unobtrusive in a way that lent clarity and subtlety to his increasingly sophisticated narratives. But The Milky Way is perhaps Bunuel’s most beautiful film; largely thanks to the natural beauty of the French countryside. The film is filled with images of a richly textured but seemingly indifferent nature that brilliantly serves to highlight the absurdity occurring around and in it. Also deserving mention is Bunuel’s increasingly complex and superb use of sound. In The Milky Way it can serve to transition between scenes but equally states of reality. Almost every section has its own motif of sounds based on the location, such as the bizarre howling wolves during a Priscillian gathering (one of Bunuel’s many obscure references). Perhaps Bunuel’s best use of sound comes with the heavenly appearance of The Virgin Mary who returns a rosary to a man who had inexplicably found it in his pocket, but chose to take aim and shoot it while hunting. With her appearance all of nature seems to come out on the soundtrack; a loud, babbling river, owls, birds, and even a harp. It’s a magical moment that lasts only as long as she’s on screen.

The Milky Way is a film that’s so rich in its content that one discussing it is shackled to merely focusing on a few select favorite elements--it’s certainly a film one could write an enormous thesis on. It’s not difficult to see why it typically isn’t mentioned among Bunuel’s best since its subject matter is enough to naturally put average and even above-average viewers off; both atheists who may see it as little more than a religious history lesson, and Christians (or believers in other religions) who are likely to be just as confused and, given Bunuel’s reputation, highly skeptical of how he’s portraying religion. But to Bunuel’s credit it’s probably his least vicious attack – if one can call it an attack at all – against religion. Bunuel seems to constantly straddle the line between promoting and condemning, and it’s that ambiguity that adds up to it being one of his richest films, because it certainly allows for a wide range of interpretations; not just overall but with each individual scene. There certainly doesn't seem to be any blanket condemnation on preconceived, theoretical grounds. His portrayal of Jesus certainly isn’t caustic like it was in the scandalous closing of L’age D’or. Rather, he seems to aim his skepticism at the church and those that try to pin down The Bible into rigid doctrine all the while practicing a healthy dose of hypocrisy that violates the very texts they’re attempting to promote. Perhaps Bunuel’s view can be summed up by a great quote attributed to Gandhi which said: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

While Simon of the Desert may have been the film that officially started Bunuel’s late period, The Milky Way is the film that cemented it, thus becoming a pivotal and essential film in his oeuvre. Typically overlooked in favor of his later and more accessible efforts, The Milky Way may be Bunuel’s ultimate statement regarding one of his lifelong obsessions and themes; related with that absurd, surreal touch that Bunuel mastered to a greater degree than anyone.

"One less! They will all drop like flies. They should have all been killed before they were born."

A compact, 80-minute piece of cinematic dynamite, Los Olvidados (aka The Young and the Damned) is the film that catapulted Bunuel back into the cinematic spotlight after nearly a decade of silence, and is really THE film that confirmed Bunuel's greatness. By taking a stylistic cue from the neo-realists, Bunuel turned his microscope, errr, camera on the impoverished youth in Mexico. The film follows a group of kids who engage in various forms of violence, theft, and other criminal activities in order both to survive and to display their own masculine fortitude in a world that's forgotten and never even cared about them. The two main characters are Jaibo, the leader and oldest of the group, and Pedro, his young and impressionable follower. As the film progresses Jaibo becomes more and more reprehensible and our hope shifts to the possible redemption to Pedro, but Bunuel is too masterful to simply make a film of heroes and villains.

Bunuel tears through his subjects and subject matter with the viciousness of a rabid wolverine. Like a shot of venom straight through the veins, the eruptions of violence, hatred, and crime in the film is palpable; much more so than just about any analog the Italians could conjure in the movement they started. What separates this film from those that came before is Bunuel's unflinching depiction, complete lack of sentiment, and cynical, critical, and invective eye. Bunuel really spent his career subverting the notion of stereotypes and the ideas that some types where inherently better than others. In this film children, parents, and even blind men can be contradictively sympathetic and then repulsive.

While Bunuel was never much of a virtuosic technician or an especially aesthetic director Los Olvidados is loaded with particularly striking visual compositions and lighting schemes. But beyond any style or aesthetic it's really Bunuel's themes, characterizations, and galvanized economy that comes across like a nuclear impact. It may be possible to criticize Bunuel for his excessive pessimism and yet the film comes across more as an outcry for someone to do something about the poverty and complete lack of caring that leads innocent children down these 'damnable' paths.

One of the greatest films from one of cinema's greatest masters.