(1962, b/w; El Angel Exterminador, Spanish) "You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." - "Hotel California" by the Eagles

Inside the gates at 1109 Calle de Providencia, the servants prepare for the arrival of twenty distinguished guests of Edmundo Nobile (Enrique Rambal) and his wife Lucía (Lucy Gallardo), but they are anxious to leave before the night's festivities begin. As Edmundo welcomes everyone into his magnificent home, he's perplexed that none of his servants is present in the entrance to receive his friends' coats and wraps; but as he directs them up the stairs, the entrance scene repeats as before.

During dinner as he makes a speech, the redundancy occurs again (the second time no one heeds his words); a waiter trips and falls with his tray, resulting in laughter (some thinking it's just one of Lucía's japes). Deciding against releasing her pet bear cub and three sheep upon the company, Lucía, already upset with the impertinence of her servants, fires her chef and his assistant when they inform her that they must leave immediately.

At the piano Blanca (Patricia de Morelos) plays a sonata by Paradisi while guests mingle and converse in absurdities. But, of course, this is a surreal satire from director/writer Luis Buñuel, a fantasy of class divisions. As the party lasts far into the morning hours, no one attempts to depart the premises.

"I'm confused," says Edmundo: "What's going on here?" Gentlemen remove their coats and lie upon the couches or recline upon the floor as do the ladies. Only the steward Julio (Claudio Brook) remains on duty. Lethargy overcomes any attempt to exit the room.

Sergio Russell (Antonio Bravo), an elderly conductor of great reputation, falls ill and dies on the second night; his body is moved into a closet where it begins to decompose and create a stench. Recriminations for having been invited and hysteria break out; others become depressed or hallucinate. "We haven't all gone crazy, have we?"

Edmundo is accused of having played a cruel joke on his company. Food and water exhausted, the desperate people tear into a wall, exposing and breaching the water pipes to quench their thirst. Without servants to attend to their needs, the social elite appear practically helpless left on their own.

As the days pass, outside people gather - the army having returned to the barracks, unable to enter the mansion - baffled that no one has come out. One couple, expecting to marry within the week, devises a method of permanent escape; others resort to superstitious practices in hopes of a miraculous deliverance.

Appalled by the "rudeness, violence, filth," Edmundo watches his friends turning into savages, burning furniture to roast the lambs and threatening his life. Finally, Leticia (Silvia Pinal) realizes a curious occurrence and, by encouraging everyone to repeat what each had done earlier, releases them from the spell. Inside the church where they go to worship and give thanks for their salvation, once more they become imprisoned within the narrow confines of their insular (yet insecure) world.

A metaphor for our own times with wealthy elites, celebrities, and powerful politicians behaving absurdly, existing in a bubble apart from ordinary people.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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