The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

98 Alex Gibney
There’s one scene where two maids are about to go out the front door,
and then they see all the guests arriving, and they quickly skitter back. They
hide until the guests arrive and then they move quickly out the front door,
exactly like rats leaving a sinking ship.
So there’s a wonderful and delicious irony, and he plays it so straight in
those scenes. When the mistress of the house finds out they’re doing this,
she gets all huffy. “Haven’t you liked working here?” “Yes, ma’am, of course
I have, but I’m afraid I must leave.”
You’re giving up a job you’ve had for five years for mysterious reasons
you can’t really understand? There’s something wonderfully comical and
mysterious about it. In the meantime, everybody’s trying to sort of keep
their poise in a completely ridiculous situation. So in a funny way, those
early scenes were very transformative for me, because they have so many
layers, and they were so mysterious and disturbing.
There is another scene early on in the film, as I watched it recently, that
I didn’t get the first time, though. One of the few remaining servants comes
in and trips and falls with a huge tray full of food, and everybody at the table
laughs hysterically. They compliment the host for putting together such a
wonderful prank and trick for their amusement. You can see the servant
embarrassed, dirty, feeling very small, and kind of slinking out of the room.
It’s a very dark and telling moment. That’s where the laugh catches you in
the throat.
In the first half of the film, there are two very obvious repeated scenes,
but Buñuel says there are at least twenty throughout the film. How did
you react to the first of those repeated scenes?
Gibney: Is one of them where the guy is giving the speech, giving the toast?
Yes. The guests enter the house twice, and then a man gives a toast
twice. Those are the two most obvious.
Gibney: I was amused by it. Again, it’s one of those things that are very
disturbing. You think, “What’s going on here?” There’s a method to his madness,
but you’re kind of astonished. You’re learning to be astonished as the
film goes on, to expect the unexpected.