The Exterminating Angel



The Exterminating Angel (Spanish: El ángel exterminador), is the second of the Buñuel/Alatriste/Pinal film trilogy, written and directed by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, starring Silvia Pinal, and produced by her then-husband Gustavo Alatriste.

It is considered by the Mexican film critics as the 16th best film of the Mexican cinema and one of the best 1000 films by the New York Times.

The Exterminating Angel was released on R4 DVD by Madman Entertainment's Directors Suite in 2006. The Criterion Collection released the film on DVD in 2009.

Background
Following his long exile from Spain, since the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), Luis Buñuel was invited back to his country of origin in 1960 by General Francisco Franco and asked to direct a movie of his choice. Buñuel wrote and directed Viridiana, which starred Silvia Pinal and was produced by her then husband, Gustavo Alatriste. It was the first film Buñuel made in his native country. Released in 1961, the film sparked controversy both in Spain and the Vatican, and as a result all existing negatives were ordered to be destroyed. The film, however, won the Palme d'Or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival, and copies of the film that had been shipped to Paris survived and were subsequently distributed. Viridiana would be released in Spain 16 years later, in 1977.

Following the Viridiana scandal, Buñuel returned to Mexico, but kept his production team and decided to make another movie starring Pinal. The film, originally called The Outcasts of Providence Street, was renamed The Exterminating Angel after Buñuel picked it from an unfinished play his friend José Bergamín was writing at the time. The film was released in Mexico in 1962, and was just as controversial as its predecessor had been.

Buñuel would complete a trilogy of sorts working with Pinal and Alatriste in a third film released in 1965 - Simon of the Desert.

Plot
During a formal dinner party at the lavish mansion of Señor Edmundo Nobile and his wife, Lucia, the servants unaccountably leave their posts until only the major-domo is left. After dinner the guests adjourn to the music room, where one of the women, Blanca, plays a piano sonata. Later, when they might normally be expected to return home, the guests unaccountably remove their jackets, loosen their gowns, and settle down for the night on couches, chairs and the floor.

By morning it is apparent that, for some inexplicable reason, they are psychologically, but not physically, trapped in the music room. Unable to leave, the guests consume what little water and food is left from the previous night's party. Days pass, and their plight intensifies; they become quarrelsome, hostile, and hysterical - only Dr. Carlos Conde, applying logic and reason, manages to keep his cool and guide the guests through the ordeal. One of the guests, the elderly Sergio Russell, dies, and his body is placed in a large cupboard. Béatriz and Eduardo, a young couple about to be married, lock themselves in a closet and commit suicide.

Eventually, several sheep and a bear break loose from their bonds and find their way to the room; the guests take in the sheep and proceed to slaughter and roast them on fires made from floorboards and broken furniture. Dr. Conde reveals to Nobile that one of his patients, Leonora, is dying from cancer and accepts a secret supply of morphine from the host to keep her fit. The supply of drugs is however stolen by Francis and Juana, an incestuous brother and sister. Ana, a crazed guest and a practitioner of witchcraft, invokes the demons of hell while lapsing into feverish hallucinations.

Eventually, Raúl suggests that Nobile is responsible for their predicament and that he must be sacrificed. Only Dr. Conde and the noble Colonel Alvaro oppose the angry mob claiming Nobile's blood. As Nobile offers to take his own life, a young, foreign guest, Letitia (nicknamed "La Valkiria") sees that they are all in the same positions as when their plight began. Obeying her instructions, the group starts reconstructing their conversation and movements from the night of the party and discover that they are then free to leave the room. Outside the manor, the guests are greeted by the local police and the servants that had left the house on the night of the party.

To give thanks for their salvation, the guests attend a Te Deum at the cathedral. When the service is over, the churchgoers along with the clergy are also trapped. It is not entirely clear though, whether those that were trapped in the house before are now trapped again. They seem to have disappeared. The situation in the church is followed by a riot on the streets and the military step in to brutally clamp down on the rioters. The last scene shows a pack of sheep entering the church in a row, accompanied by the sound of gunshots.