The Exterminating Angel

The Exterminating Angel (El ángel exterminador) is a film Mexico of Luis Buñuel released in 1962, which shows how the veneer of civilization can disappear quickly in an extreme situation.

Summary

 * 1 Overview
 * 2 Data sheet
 * 3 Distribution
 * 4 Reference to the film
 * 5 External link
 * 6 Notes and references

Synopsis [ edit | edit the code ]
At a reception held in a Mexican aristocrat produced a strange event: no one seems able to leave the house. First start of each is postponed, under any pretext;then, from the morning, manifests as a physical impossibility psychic to get out of the house, under the effect of a strange invisible force. Guests and their wives remain locked up in the living room with the only butler, the other servants who all mysteriously resigned before the start of these events. Similarly, on the outside, the authorities, the police, the families they are also unable to cross the gate of the property.

During the period of confinement, which lasts several days, there is the revelation of the character and personality of the protagonists. Hunger and thirst are interrupted after some time by the opening of a pipe, and then by the strange appearance of live animals, lambs whose sacrifice the same time contributes to the rise in primitive violence of the situation. The absurd camera, promiscuity, inability to wash, cause dehumanization deletion appearances and social conventions, if treated normally. Deception, cruelty are revealed, and the last hours of confinement show extreme tension, much psychic violence. The only solution is to force the host, found responsible, suicide, according to the mechanism  scapegoat  . This disastrous plan fails little thanks to the lifting of the "curse", one of the guests having the idea to replicate a certain time of the initial night, allowing guests to get out and go to meet emergency which, in their part, were not able to cross the gate of the house.

The film is, in a circular way: in the end, the notables met in the cathedral for a thanksgiving Mass. But at the end of the ceremony, the same mechanism appears again. We then see sheep climb the stairs to the porch of the church, far more than in the first confinement; they enter the church, and the gates close. Outside, a riot broke out. The bells of the last judgment (referring to the title, taken from the Apocalypse) ringing at random ...

Data Sheet [ edit | edit the code ]

 * Title: The Exterminating Angel
 * Original title: El ángel exterminador
 * Director: Luis Buñuel
 * Scenario: Luis Buñuel and Luis Alcoriza
 * Photo: Gabriel Figueroa
 * Music: Raúl Lavista, on themes from Beethoven , Chopin , Scarlatti
 * Producer: Gustavo Alatriste
 * Country of Origin: Mexico
 * Language: Spanish
 * Genre: Drama
 * Duration: 93 minutes
 * Release date: 1962

Distribution [ edit | edit the code ]

 * Silvia Pinal
 * Enrique Rambal
 * Claudio Brook
 * José Baviera
 * Augusto Benedico
 * Luis Beristáin
 * Congratulations Antonio
 * Jacqueline Andere

Reference to the film [ edit | edit the code ]
In the film Midnight in Paris of Woody Allen, the hero played by Owen Wilson meets Luis Buñuel and suggests the scenario of The Exterminating Angel .