While many people may find The Exterminating Angel a bit Sartre (the whole ‘hell is being locked forever in a room with your friends’ thing), it isn’t. No, instead, Luis Buñuel’s bizarre, surrealistic fantasy El Ángel Exterminador is a brutal bashing of Europe’s high and mighty bourgeois scene--and a damn funny one, too.

In the opening segment, head butler Julio (Claudio Brook, the later star of Buñuel’s Simon Of The Desert) discharges one of the other servants who wishes to leave his place of employment for no other reason than something is willing him away. Normally, this sort of thing wouldn’t so much as get a second thought from a high society couple like Edmundo and Lucía de Nobile (Enrique Rambal and Lucy Gallardo, respectively), this night happens to be the big night of an impromptu dinner, in which the Nobile’s have invited a collection of other prestigious and “civilized” individuals, ranging from doctors (Augusto Benedico, co-star of several El Santo peliculas) to colonels (César del Campo, another El Santo regular--hell, half of Mexico were El Santo regulars so I’ll just let it go at that) and the temperamental Leticia, better known as “The Valkyrie” (Silvia Pinal, also to be later cast in Simon Of The Desert…but whom, oddly enough, never appeared in an El Santo film).

However, it’s not just the one servant who feels uneasy tonight: the other butlers, cooks, and maids all have an uncontrollable urge to leave the illustrious Providence Street mansion…and soon, poor Julio is left taking care of party all by himself. Upon their arrival, the guests are shown arriving and going upstairs twice, in what is only the beginning of the film’s many repeat sequences (the relevance of which is never explained). Following their dinner, our protagonists (and there are a lot of ‘em) adjourn to a drawing room, where they discuss topics such as music, infidelity (in secret, of course), and those abominable lower class people.

OK so, so far, it’s a pretty blatant social satire, but then Buñuel’s vivid imagination (this was the first film he made in Mexico in which he had complete creative control) kicks in: none of the guests can leave the room. They’re stuck there for no rhyme or reason which, again, is never explained--Buñuel himself even had no idea why the guests were trapped, only that they were trapped. From then on, these upper class snobs are forced to live off of paper and break open a pipe in the wall in order to eat and drink (like common, poor folk do) and resort to shitting in vases in the closet. One man dies. A couple commits suicide. Throw in the logically-devoid additions of three lambs and a bear cub and an entire city that waits outside, unable to even enter the house in order to rescue its entombed inhabitants, and an ending that definitely goes in my book as a living hell, and you have a motion picture with the distinct honor of never being remade by those cretins in Hollywood.

Highly recommended.

Presentation
Once again, Criterion has done a remarkable job: The Exterminating Angel has been gloriously restored and is presented in a new high-def digital transfer. The Full Frame 1.33:1 presentation contains a solid balance of black and white and is slightly Windowboxed to prevent any image-loss on widescreen monitors.

The movie contains its original Spanish-language Monaural soundtrack with newly translated and easy-to-read Subtitles (which is a vast improvement from that ol‘ VHS copy I had in which I had to ask myself if they did say “Just a passing Jew” instead of “Why did they say ‘Just a passing Jew?’”).

Extras
Not only has Criterion been gracious enough to release this classic on DVD to begin with, but they’ve given us an entire second disc of Special Features! Disc One contains the original Mexican Trailer (3:49)--which is something of a rarity in itself--but Disc Two offers up the superb 2008 documentary The Last Script: Remembering Luis Buñuel (96:59). This standalone feature follows Luis’ son, director Juan Luis Buñuel, and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière around the globe as they visit each and every home and city that Juan’s famous filmmaker father ever lived in. It’s a true delight to see these aging artists reflect on times and events past (which they both remember vividly) and the documentary is done so well that, at times, you feel as if you’re walking right along with them. The feature contains a lot of archive footage from Buñuel’s private and professional life and is interlaced with clips from his filmed works as well as vintage photographs (he kept meticulous photographic journals by the look of things). A particularly amusing reminiscing from Juan Luis involves an occasion in which Buñuel sliced off a bit of his finger while making paella--to which he told his son “Let’s just not say anything.” Various other faces show up to give their two-cents worth, including Rafael Buñuel (the other son) and Silvia Pinal.

Next up on Disc Two are two Interviews: one with actress Silvia Pinal (10:14), which was recorded at the same time as the Interview on Simon Of The Desert; and another discussion with filmmaker Arturo Ripstein (14:49), who had idolized Buñuel and stood by on the set of The Exterminating Angel (thanks to his father, Mexican producer Alfredo Ripstein, Jr.). The latter Interview is in English, while the other Special Features are all in Spanish with optional English Subtitles.

As with Criterion’s release of Simon Of The Desert, The Exterminating Angel also contains a booklet with additional goodies. The 36-page piece starts out with an essay on The Exterminating Angel by film scholar Marsha Kinder and then switches to an excerpt from the book, Objects Of Desire: Conversations With Luis Buñuel, where we once again get to read what the director himself had to say of this production.

The Bottom Line
Even if the whole premise of the movie irritates you, you can’t deny that the bourgeoisie don’t deserve it.