Cast of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Delphine Seyrig Mme Thevenot Stéphane Audran Alice Sénéchal Jean-Pierre Cassel M. Sénéchal Julien Bertheau Monseigneur Dufour Michel Piccoli Le Ministre François Maistre Delecluze Pierre Maguelon Le sergent de police Maxence Mailfort Traum-Sergeant Maria Gabriella Maione Terroristin Christian Baltauss Lt. Hubert de Rochcahin Jacques Rispal Un gendarme Robert Benoît (uncredited) Anne-Marie Deschodt (uncredited) Jean-Michel Dhermay (uncredited) Sébastien Floche (uncredited) Claude Jaeger (uncredited) Amparo Soler Leal (uncredited) Madeleine Bouchez Une cliente du salon de thé (uncredited) Roger Caccia Le pianiste du salon de thé (uncredited)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie Reviews
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
For about 45 minutes, it's actually rather droll. Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Most of the films of Luis Bunuel are comedies in one way or another, but he doesn't go for gags and punch lines; his comedy is more like a dig in the ribs, sly and painful. Slant Magazine Ed Gonzalez
Buuel repeatedly takes on the gross presumptuousness of his characters--their unwillingness to admit defeat and to take things only at face value. Slant Magazine Budd Wilkins
Dreams nest within other dreams like so many Chinese puzzle boxes, while no dream belongs exclusively to a single dreamer, as though Buuel were toying with the Jungian notion of the collective unconscious. Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Luis Buuel's 1972 comic masterpiece, about three well-to-do couples who try and fail to have a meal together, is perhaps the most perfectly achieved and executed of all his late French films. Luis Bunuel adds another fine film to his solid record with this surrealistically oriented tale of so-called bourgeois types. New York Magazine/Vulture Peter Rainer
Take a look again at its dream sequences, especially the nocturnal one involving the young man in the side street, and you will see a master disturber still at work. Dallas Morning News Gary Dowell
An absurdly comic assault on the meaningless social rituals and polite hypocrisies of the upper middle class. San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
The film's discreet charm is Buuel's finesse. Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Strange, wacky, funny, and tragic -- and, on an incidental personal note, Discreet Charm is the movie that made me realize I was in love with movies. It combines a masterful command of the medium with a mischievous, anarchic sense of imaginative freedom. This has to be one of the most completely realized comedies ever made, and, in its odd way, one of the most civilized. Boasts one of the best titles in movie history and a cast to match. New York Magazine/Vulture Judith Crist
Luis Bunuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is a deliciously pungent concoction by the 72-year-old filmmaker and his young co-scenarist, Jean-Claude Carriere, that will set your spirits soaring and your mind aglow. Bunuel's art is as insolent as ever. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is a deeply funny movie, as a viewing experience it's like walking across a perilous, sway little bridge whose guide rails periodically snatched away. A fascinating and thought-provoking work of cinema. InSession Film Brian Susbielles
Surrealist satire attacking the upper classes for their sexual morals, attraction to social status, and detachment from reality... The charm of the film is that the old magician can show off his skills and make fun of them at the same time... There is nothing else in the movie -- just the surprises, and the pleasures of [Buñuel] dexterity as he springs them. Discreet Charm is a deadpan farce forever flirting with anarchy. Easy Reader (California) Neely Swanson
Absurdity is piled onto absurdity and reality and surreality blend until it is impossible to tell which is which.
Watch The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie Videos
The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie (US) The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie (50th Anniversary UK Trailer Subtitled)