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With his final film ‘That Obscure Object of Desire’ (1977), Luis Buñuell bequeathed to the world one last shining example of the potentialities of surrealist film. By placing an unconventional love story into a conventional narrative framework, Buñuel undermines our expectations as an audience and subverts our preconceptions. On a train in Seville wealthy Parisian Mathieu, played by Fernando Rey, startles his fellow passengers by pouring a bucket of water over a young woman. By way of accounting for his seemingly inexplicable actions, Mathieu regales the travellers with the tale of his tumultuous and ultimately unconsummated love affair with Conchita, his erstwhile chambermaid and victim of the water incident. With characteristic playfulness, Buñuel uses several subversive devices to undermine the simplicity of the love story, such as using two actresses in one role and introducing extraneous sub-plots. These deviations from a conventional storytelling serve to make the film both ambiguous and intriguing, and so broaden the scope of possible readings. One particularly striking effect of Buñuel's technique is that of the relationship he develops between the audience and the filmic text itself – just as Conchita teases Mathieu, inflaming his desires without ever quenching them, Buñuel taunts us with symbolism without reference and narrative loose ends which remain untied.
The most famous innovation in ‘That Obscure Object of Desire’ is, as mentioned, the interchanging of two actresses within the role of Conchita. This is done consistently throughout the film's entire duration, with no definite pattern governing which actress appears in which scene. However, perhaps by design or perhaps because of the individualistic nature of acting, each actress imbues Conchita with a marginally different personality - Angela Molina's Conchita is noticeably more playful and flirtatious whereas Carole Bouquet's Conchita is more subdued and forbidding. Effectively, Angela Molina leads Mathieu on, and Carole Bouquet rejects his advances. Another aspect of the difference between the two women is that of nationality, as Conchita is an Andalusian who spent most of her life living in France. This duality is reflected in the nationalities of the actresses themselves, with Bouquet representing France and Molina Spain, and this distinction is evident in both their appearances and in the previously mentioned character traits. This is particularly clear in the scenes showing Conchita dancing the Flamenco, which exclusively use Angela Molina, highlighting both her archetypal 'Spanishness.' A parallel to this can be found in Buñuel himself, who made most of his films in France despite being Spanish by birth and seemingly felt the two countries to have a conflicting control over him. This similarity between Buñuel and Conchita strengthens the argument that Conchita actions towards Mathieu reflect those of the director towards his audience, - both beguile and allure, shrouded in an ambiguity which only heightens their intrigue.
As previously touched upon, while Conchita's two actresses bestow two separate personalities on her, it is also interesting to consider that they provide her with two bodies, which relates strongly to the theme of sexuality and chastity. During the early stages of Mathieu's pursuit of Conchita, she confides in him that she is still a virgin, but she eventually agrees to move into his house on the understanding that their relationship will not be consummated until she decrees fit. Not only does this not happen, but Mathieu comes to believe that while she has been living with him in a state of celibacy, she has been carrying on a love affair a young musician, who Mathieu at one point discovers hidden in her bedroom. Enraged, Mathieu expels Conchita from the house before arranging for her and her mother to be exported back to Spain. Despite his determination to sever all ties, eventually he follows her to Seville where she has been working as a nude dancer. Conchita assures him that despite appearances her purity is still intact and promises to leave her job if he buys her a house. He does so willingly, only to find himself locked out of it and subjected to a humiliating revelation that Conchita not only despises him and has been using him, but that she has indeed been sleeping with the musician. This moment should serve to resolve all the unanswered questions concerning Conchita's capriciousness and the motivation behind her behaviour, yet the next day she appears before Mathieu claiming it was all a ruse to teach him to allow her to be independent, thus plunging both Mathieu and the audience back into a state of confusion. This exasperation is the crux of the entire film, both for the character of Mathieu and the audiences watching the story unfold, the sexual desire of the former paralleling the desire for closure of the second.
The uncertainty concerning Conchita's virtue and her true feelings for Mathieu is never clarified, and the physical difference between the two actresses contributes greatly to this by visually invoking the idea of schizophrenia; it is as if Mathieu is genuinely dealing with two different women. This is perhaps a very perceptive comment on the inevitably irrational and aggressive way humans conduct relationships, a comment which is all the more poignant by the simple fact that it’s made through the medium of narrative film which so often presents us with an optimistic but implausible portrayal of love. Similarly, and slightly paradoxically, the division of one character into two bodies actually makes her more rounded and believable. Conchita is still very young, and perhaps she is still wary of her own sexuality, being both compelled and suspicious of it. Furthermore, she has to choose between a life with Mathieu, whereby she wants for nothing but also has very little personal freedom, or an impoverished life with her widowed mother, whereby she maintains complete autonomy but must provide for herself with menial and often unpleasant work. Following this argument, the two bodies could be the personification of the 'two minds' she finds herself in.
Another important factor to consider is that of the narrative perspective, as the whole film is told from Mathieu's point of view. Conventional film establishes an objective reality which the audience is intended to accept unquestioningly, and this extends across films with first-person narration. In the case of ‘That Obscure Object of Desire’ this is not so straightforward. A subtle but effective way Buñuel uses to make the viewer question what is presented to him is by making the protagonist thoroughly unpleasant; traditionally, audiences are encouraged to identify with the hero or principal character, and this is considered to be one of the most important methods of ensuring viewing pleasure. Mathieu, however, is presented as little more than a lecherous and worthless member of the bourgeoisie, who seemingly has nothing better to do with his time than traipse around Europe fixating on his frustrated carnal desires. As he tells his story to his fellow travellers in the train carriage, he sees no need to hide his aggressive treatment of Conchita, or the fact that he beat up her before throwing the water over her. His very motivation for telling the story is to justify himself in their eyes, and it is apparent from his attitude that he has little doubt that he will do so. Buñuel also points viewers in the direction of a Freudian interpretation of the film with the character of the psychology professor dwarf, who makes several allusions to unconscious factors governing Mathieu's actions. What this all means in terms of reading the film is that we are unable to be certain even of the disjointed narrative that we are presented with, as our single source of information is proven to be both objective and untrustworthy. It also means that the dual actress device could be understood as attempt on the part of Mathieu to make sense of what he perceives to be contradictory behaviour.
A final element of ‘That Obscure Object of Desire’ that deserves to be considered in terms of the relationship between the audience and the text is the use of constant narrative distractions which seem to be building up to an explanation of unclear aspects of the film, but in fact end up contributing to them. There are numerous instances of this, but the most glaring is that of the terrorist attacks which take place in the background throughout the whole film and eventually end up killing the main characters. The attacks are frequently referred to in newspaper headlines and radio broadcasts. Mathieu witnesses several attacks at close proximity as cars explode and people are shot down outside his bedroom window, but he shrugs them off as minor inconveniences. The incongruity of these occurrences with the principle romantic tale indicates some hidden meaning. Another recurring motif is that of suspicious looking sacks, which are shown being carried across the frame in several scenes. The sacks could plausibly be related to the terrorist incidents, for example, as a means of transporting bombs or weapons. An alternative interpretation comes from a scene in which Mathieu's manservant offers the opinion that “women are sacks of excrement”. In any case, any explanation for these anomalies can be nothing more than subjective conjecture. This raises the issue of whether any interpretation of a text is more valid than any other. Throughout his six-decade career, Buñuel refused to comment on his work or offer any explanation of meaning he intended to impart. This is true to one of the fundamental precepts of surrealism, which holds that it is the artists duty to create a work which encourages an examination of unconscious factors and that the meaning itself is created by the onlooker. Whilst many surrealists tried to achieve this by creating spontaneous or random art, Buñuel has shown that one of the most effective ways of achieving this is to use a conventional framework to undermine conventional expectations.
It has been said that the cause of suffering is desire. Certainly, Mathieu is driven to the point of madness by his desire for Conchita. With ‘That Obscure Object of Desire’ Luis Buñuel skilfully manipulates the desire of his audience to piece together the information he bestows upon them to make a cohesive whole. However, when the subject matter is human behaviour and human emotion, Buñuel shows us that cohesion is meaningless. By denying us the ultimately vacuous satisfaction of loveable characters coming together for a happy ending, ‘That Obscure Object of Desire’ shows us that not only is our interest better sustained but that an ostensibly absurd approach to creating fictitious personalities and stories can in fact produce a film that is surprisingly insightful and realistic.
Country: France/Spain
Budget: £
Length: 120mins
Pub/2009
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