Le Fantôme de la liberté
1974 Comedy / Drama
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Credits
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Summary
A respectable middle-class couple dismiss their maid when they learn that their children
have been given shocking photographs of famous landmarks by a stranger. In an inn,
a group of devout monks gamble at cards, using their medallions as poker chips, before
being invited into another room to watch a display of sadomasochism. A mass
murderer is sentenced to death but is immediately released and then hailed as a hero.
The army are called to a zoo to protect the caged animals from human visitors...
Down with liberty! Bring on the chains!
Review
Following a line from his earlier film, La
Voie lactée (1969), Luis Buñuel gives free reign to his own phantom
of liberty in this highly entertaining satirical comedy. Starting with the
premise that freedom is an illusion and that every human being is bound by the constraints
of social convention and physical necessity, the film makes an anarchistic assault on
the very institutions and human foibles which Buñuel delighted in ridiculing throughout
his career.
Le Fantôme de la liberté has a strong resonance with Buñuel’s first films, the perplexing Un chien Andalou and the unashamedly heretical L’Age d’or, but also has the maturity and sophistication of the director’s latter films. The film also shows Buñuel as the master of satirical comedy, with elements such as the notorious dinner party scene making the film accessible to a mainstream cinema audience. © James Travers 2002
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