‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’ 4K 50th Anniversary Trailer

‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’ 4K 50th Anniversary Trailer

by Alex Billington
May 30, 2022
Source: YouTube

“I don’t think I belong here.” The Film Forum in NYC has revealed an official 4K restoration trailer for the iconic, surrealist masterpiece The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, one of the great Luis Buñuel’s final films. It originally premiered in 1972, which means it’s celebrating its 50th anniversary this year in 2022. It’s highly regarded as a cerebral classic dealing with time travel and the bourgeoisie and their never-ending appetite. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie follows a group of dinner guests attempting to dine together, despite continual interruptions involving dreams and repeating scenes. The film is described as Bunuel’s “most frivolously witty movie, directed (at the age of 72) with exhilarating ease.” The French film stars Fernando Rey, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Paul Frankeur, Delphine Seyrig, Bulle Ogier, Julien Bertheau, and Milena Vukotic. It’s one of the most confusing films you’ll ever see, but that’s also part of the “discreet charm” of figuring it out, and making sense of what Buñuel is saying and offering audiences with this twisted narrative. The brand new 4K restoration will open first at Film Forum’s cinema in NYC and hopefully screen at a few other art house theaters around the country later this summer.

New 50th Anniversary trailer for Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, on YouTube:

It’s “mealus interruptus” for suave ambassador Fernando Rey, dry martini aficionado Paul Frankeur, his perpetually smiling wife Delphine Seyrig, her queasy-stomached sister Bulle Ogier, gracious hostess Stéphane Audran, and her sharply dressed husband Jean-Pierre Cassel. They’re perpetually arriving at elegant dinner to find they’ve got the day wrong, the proprietor’s lying dead in the next room, the tea room’s out of tea and coffee, the army’s dropping in for maneuvers, the roast’s a prop and they’re in a play for which they know no lines, or the cops decide to make a major bust. And then these characters are constantly dreaming, although they only awake after they’ve found themselves in the most preposterous of tight spots. Mayhem ensues at a sophisticated cocktail party where polite chitchat consists of pointing out every embarrassing fact about the Latin American republic of Miranda, then Frankeur announces that he’s dreamt that Cassel was dreaming. These bourgeois always maintain their elegant couture, gracious politesse, and the quintessence of style, whether finishing a drug deal or sauntering down a country road.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is directed by iconic Spanish-French filmmaker Luis Buñuel, one of his last four feature films he made in the 1970s before passing away in 1983. It was co-written by Buñuel’s longtime collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière. Over his long career, Carrière also collaborated on scripts with such other international filmmaking giants including Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Deray, Louis Malle, Pierre Etaix, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, and Milos Forman. The film originally opened in France in 1972, and also premiered at the 1972 New York Film Festival. This new 4K restoration of Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie will debut at the Film Forum cinema in New York City, playing from June 24th, 2022 until July 7th in a very limited run. For more info, visit their official site. Any big fans of this film?

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