(Directed by Luis Bunuel)
by Kevin Murphy
It had been raining all afternoon, showed no signs of stopping. I was sitting with Bill, the two of us holed up at Vickery’s. I snarled at the wreaths, the lights, the hundreds of cards tacked to the corkboard around the door; Christmas had once again saturated, poisoned my skin so that I itched wildly, uncontrollably, like a stray pup with fleas.
It was an act, of course. Sure I was upset, perhaps a bit unhinged, but my performance was inspired for Bill’s attention. From Boston with cheer he gushed of finally achieving his PhD.
Go to Hell! I wanted to growl, my under lip punched out and trembling.
Bill was too sincere, though. I couldn’t do it. He was genuinely happy, the first time I can recall, and so I muffled my desire to moan, focusing instead on the internal warmth generated by my third, fourth, and fifth pint of Guinness.
Here, then, is where I would take my drama. To the glassy hills of intoxication, roiling with all the demons of my morose Irish soul.
Whack! on the back of my head: Whack! Whack! Three times to shake me out. Bill, you son of a…
“I can see where you are,” he said, his 6 foot 4 frame looking down on my slouch. “And let me say your appearance is pathetic, still as affected and silly as I remember.”
A brief visit to the College of Charleston to speak with the dean about a position and now a lecture on the impracticality of sadness, wallowing and revolt, he puffed more logic than the rain, the beer, or the holidays into my grievous state. I was abruptly hatched and granted the freedom to reflect. I sat up for explanation with Bill’s giant hand to my face.
He’d heard it all on a different day: my girl’s gone! my girl’s gone! But this stupor settled when, without once shaking her hand, Bill reminded, as I somehow knew, that this one would be back.
From college with love old buddies gave me Swingers. Bill’s take had tossed that aside and whispered Bunuel, Bunuel, Bunuel, the Spanish-born director whose films are revered for their subversive humor, surrealism, and beauty; entrusted in battle and in union by the sad, triumphant struggle for love.
Inspired, Bill asked if a theater might, or a local store, but I had shined my quarter early that day and Joey, whose rain plans consisted of watching It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, and Christmas Vacation back to back to back ad infinitum until he’d succumbed to the masochistic pleasure of his holiday dreams, possessed nearly all Bunuel films and would certainly shuffle a lender.
At my house in Charleston Bill did as he did in Boston. That is remove a shank bottle of viscous chardonnay from the depths of his inner jacket and settle on the couch with lights turned low. In those days he’d soak his feet in a hot water Rubbermaid and wax the night blue for his studies, sweethearts and weight problems. But now he was my mentor, issuing Bunuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire as the farcical, sympathetic remedy to my heart’s zoonlishness.
“At times, we’re all zoonlish,” Bill said. “Watch, just imagine you are in this film. You’ll feel better than you do now.”
The synopsis of That Obscure Object of Desire: buccaneer if you can, but sex, love and money lead to more places than the master bedroom. Themes, you say. Themes, like the rain today in Charleston, fall from the sky and call for an earnest cha, cha, cha, as an older gentleman desires to possess, with all his paternal, male-hierarchy hoopla, the heart of a beautiful young woman. So yes, satire spins drama on its heels and couples this fiasco with eccentric characters complete with two females playing lead. The complexity of a person halved in two portrays the elusiveness and deception of Conchita, the gorgeous head-case behind whom Mathieu pants and sighs.
First conceived in Ireland on the Cliffs of Moher, zoonlishness is most often associated with animals and people suffering a broken heart. Aware only of their instinctual need to reproduce and survive, animals exist in an agitated state where acceptance and rejection mark the direction of their lives. Like animals, the heartbroken, if rejected, are more likely to perish than their accepted counterparts. If a man loves a woman and decides his possession of her is the essential root to his survival, he will pursue her to the end. If, at that end, the woman is still not possessed, the man will slip into a state of shock and despair, earmarking his vulnerability with visits to liquor stores, prostitutes and jail cells. If the animal succeeds it spawns life. If the man succeeds he breeds, and furthers the development of, his ego.
Mathieu (Fernando Rey) rides limbo between these states. Akin to success, life has presented challenges as the opportunities he takes advantage of. Unable to fully possess Conchita, he manages to avoid the ungainly ventures of most desperate men by evoking a determination and passion that would make the most skillful hunter proud. His ego already a flapping flag, Mathieu endures the storm with bravura, but nonetheless exhibits unmistakable zoonlishness.
Some suggest Mathieu is Bunuel’s alter ego. The director was near eighty when this, his last film, was completed. The story comes from the novel La Femme et le Pantin, and was adapted for the screen by Bunuel and his longtime screenwriter, Jean-Claude Carriere. Bunuel directed numerous films concerning the challenges and mishaps of love; That Obscure Object of Desire presents the parody of his conclusions with the deft, mature reflection of a man whose art has reached its most complete definition.
Did you know the Irish say that reminiscence is the long underwear of a relationship? Yup, it’s warm and cozy but a pain in the ass to get out of. Mathieu’s hands get tangled in his drawers when he boards a train back to Paris to abandon Conchita for good. He winds the time by reminiscing of his affair to his fellow travelers: a judge, a mother and daughter, a dwarf psychology professor. The film shimmies across the hardwood of Mathieu’s memory, examining his ritualistic desire, devotion, and despair, while Conchita proves her complexity by never revealing her actual motivations. Is she really a virgin only after Mathieu’s money? Only the potentially homosexual guitar player knows the answer to that one, my friend. This while terrorist groups harass France and Spain; surrealism to be sure, this world is a crowded, ridiculous boxcar.
“Bunuel was the most economic of the great auteurs,” Bill explained, his feet steaming red and dripping above the hot water Rubbermaid.
“Hot Water Music,” I yelled.
“No, no, Bunuel. Focus with me. Every scene is an exercise in control and tempo.”
“Control and tempo,” I said.
Rain splashed the windowsill and Christmas lights blinked across the darkness. I took a swig of chardonnay to shut her out of my mind. I echoed the syllables Me-rry Christ-mas through my teeth. Tomorrow there’d be hell to pay, but tonight That Obscure Object of Desire had saved me.
