"That Obscure Object of Desire" (Language - French/Spanish) (1977) - Movie Review

Director Luis Buñuel’s frustrated and confused observation about women has a tremendous influence on the film that he uses two different actresses to do the swindling and complicated character of Conchita (Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina). What does she want or her representation of the women as such, what do they want? The middle aged Frenchman Mathieu (Fernando Rey) beats himself up in not knowing that as millions of men. This film is suspenseful, artistic, compulsive and erotic.

After a bucketful of water has been splashed over very young Conchita by the old Mathieu when she arrives at the train station, the fellow passengers give a questionable look. Mathieu is old and classy in appearance which makes the act even more curious. Knowing their curiosity, Mathieu offers to tell the story which we and the passengers believe to be true. Mathieu beyond his attires has a concealing face of suspicion with connivance and cheekiness. It is the automatic judgment of rich plus single old guy is equal to a nasty and perverted person. Mathieu is no saint but he loves Conchita devilishly. He wants to complete it by consummating but she resists. After several times she teases him and then snatches herself away we begin to feel sympathetic for the poor old man. But is he really loves her or just wants to make love to her? Conchita has the same doubt which is the only thing we observe about her. Rest is tangles of complications.

The narration is the move in the story telling to have it compelling. It need not be original but a story like this to be heard during a train journey can make any one convince and believe it. There is a shade of doubt in the veracity of the old man’s experience but the finishing sequences clear it away. As Conchita, the director too gives mixed signals to us on what to think of this story and characters. The tendency for us to believe that she is really in love is forecasted as different with directorial references of mouse getting trapped during an important agreement and the sack which is carried along at several instances by Mathieu along with other characters haunt us on what is this game played upon us? It is suspense but on the basis of emotion.

There are plenty of reasons for Conchita to attach herself to Mathieu for his money which is the obvious inference. She is poor, lonely, young and in a foreign country. He is old, rich and lonely. Good enough to patch up for convenience. And how gorgeous are these two women. Carole Bouquet has the smile of deception and invitation while Angela Molina looks naïve, bubbly and sensual. It takes two women to partially understand the unpredictable and unexplainable Conchita. There is an interesting segment when Angela Molina as Conchita asks Mathieu that if she loves him and her body belongs to him, why does having sex becomes the mark of it? The question is ridiculous and truthful in its virtue of its statement.

There is the loyal and faithful servant of Mathieu called Martin (I was not able to find the actor’s name). He is given as a symbolic and humanistic representation of Mathieu’s conscience or may be judgment in witty form. He tells old sayings and states the obvious with sarcasm and realism at appropriate times to rub salt on Mathieu’s defeated and cheated wounds. Same comes from one of the passengers, a psychology professor affected by dwarfism to guess Mathieu’s next action or the characters he meets. He forms the intelligent part of that crowd who is a one little step ahead of what is going to happen.

One wonders how difficult women are and how devastatingly they can hurt men. But men are sexually frustrated and unsatisfying jerks. May be that’s the reason the director chuckles on the male dominated society for such a long time in us taking sides with Mathieu. Why this female constantly tortures him by not offering herself to him is the lingering question after every step of the story is said to us. It scares, excites, enlightens and questions us in its excellent script.