459-460 The Exterminating Angel and Simon of the Desert

[Matt]

Beaver on Simon of the Desert

Don't look at the two captures after the one of Simon pointing his finger unless you want the ending spoiled for you.

[HerrSchreck]

Christ (or should I say Simon) I love the ending of that movie.

Correction: I love the whole damned thing. Sylia is so badass as the devil. And what a pair of gams (and she even shows some sweatersphere too, generous gal she is).

[Florinaldo]

I own the Simón del Desierto French edition Gary Tooze refers to in his review. I just viewed a few shots to refresh my memory. The image quality looks comparable o the screen capures on the DVDbeaver site, although that is always a dangerous comparison to make since captures may look very different from one computer screen to the next (I made the comparison using my Mac) and reproduction is not necessarily faithful between different browsers.

The image is just a bit soft, but that is typical of many Mexican Buñuel titles.

The French edition is not pictureboxed, which is certainly a plus as compared to the new Criterion, but it only has French subtitles.

It offers the same documentary as an extra, but not the Pinal interview and no booklet. It is coupled with El Angel Exterminador.

It was issued bt GCHTV and appears to be out of print.

I would suppose the Buñuel interview in the Criterion booklet is another excerpt from the Colina-Turrent book.

[Cronenfly]

Beaver on The Exterminating Angel.

[evenswr]

Don't look at the two captures after the one of Simon pointing his finger unless you want the ending spoiled for you.

Thanks, Matt! I won't!

[swo17]

While you're at it, try not to look at the back cover of the DVD either.

[cdnchris]

Exterminating Angel
Simon of the Desert

[mfunk9786]

Isn't it kind of unfair to deduct points for pictureboxing, when disliking it is totally subjective? Just because you don't like it, it doesn't mean that others aren't benefiting from it. My TV overscans, I'm glad they still do it, but I wouldn't give them extra praise on the video quality because of it.

[peerpee]

Disliking pictureboxing isn't totally subjective: it favours a defunct technology (CRT displays) over a newer more prevalent technology, and is thus retrograde.

[Michael Kerpan]

Disliking pictureboxing isn't totally subjective: it favours a defunct technology (CRT displays) over a newer more prevalent technology, and is thus retrograde.

Are there any actually any statistics that show most TV watchers now own LCD TVs rather than CRT ones? (We are still retrograde -- and likely to remain so for quite some time).

[colinr0380]

I think the extra twist to the situation is that at least here in the UK we are about to go through a switchover from analogue to digital transmissions that, while it will not automatically cause cathode ray televisions to become defunct, is going to force a lot of people to upgrade their equipment to continue receiving TV transmissions (if their TVs do not have SCART connections to connect a set top box to), or at least consider upgrading (then there's the push towards HDTVs). And since it is next to impossible to find cathode ray TVs any more, they are going to be forced onto the newer tech whether they want to be or not.

The pictureboxing works fine for me now with my older televisions, but as with customer service for older versions of Windows, I don't really expect DVD companies or TV manufacturers will continue to work to those kinds of parameters when manufacturing new products. It wouldn't be economically sensible to keep the support up and people content with what they already have!

[kaujot]

That's happening in the US, too.

[dadaistnun]

Kehr weighs in.

[colinr0380]

A post by Tim Lucas suggesting Buñuel's influence on Mario Bava from these films.

[tavernier]

AW weighs in.

My favorite Armondism in his review:

In Criterion’s DVD versions, both films look better than ever, restoring them to an aesthetic excitement that challenges today’s simplistic F/X and superficial transgress imagery that degrade the Surrealist ideal.

[arsonfilms]

What the hell does that even mean?

[domino harvey]

And doesn't he come all over stupid FX action movies?

[Forrest Taft]

And doesn't he come all over stupid FX action movies?

Yeah, but he hates "superficial transgress imagery".

[knives]

Sweet zombie Jesus that was weird. Does the man have an editor? I ask this because of slips like this one

If you don't know Angel and Simon, you don't what makes Buñuel matter—which means you don't know how great movies can be.

[Florinaldo]

The most fascinating part of the Maillé documentary on Buñuel's Mexican period was to me the rediscovered "happy end" to Los Olvidados.

One can understand the distributor's wish to plan for this more commercial alternative version, and I suppose we care enough about the character Pedro to wish for him to return to the reform school and give back the money. But it is difficult to imagine the movie being such an overall artistic success without both boys dying, especially since we would be missing those wonderful shots of a chicken casually walking over Pedro's boy, him being dumped on the trash heap or Jaibo's death hallucination. (Although Pedro's encounter with Ojitos is sweet.)

And the music tagged on the shot of Pedro entering the school contradicts everything that has been seen before. It's not wonder the two actors did not even remember shooting that version of their final fight, since the other one is now so iconic and rings so true.

[GringoTex]

I hadn't seen Simon of the Desert in about 18 years and was shocked with the respect Bunuel treats his title character. It's not holy men or the idea of holiness that Bunuel is attacking, it's the circus that the strati of society create in trying to make sense of the holiness. The encounters between Simon and Satan (god Silvia Pinal has great tits) are treated quite seriously.

[HerrSchreck]

It really is a fabulous film. I don't have the CC but I have a good enough vhs, and lord have mercy he brings the absurdity of religion's effects on men to such stark realization, I hafta laugh hystericaly when I see it. (and ditto on Pinal's tits-- hell, her whole body.. of course I use the word hell correspondingly as she plays the--one hell of a hot one-- Devil.)

His Simon is indeed a stately character who escapes ridicule.. though I have to say, at times, that beard, that long stick figure perched way way up top that long column, that deadpan face... sometimes it all comes across so loaded, being surrounded by all that absurdity, that just looking at a freezeframe of Simon's face makes me wanta bust out and laugh.

[Antoine Doinel]

Newsweek is happy to see The Exterminating Angel on DVD.

[bunuelian]

I could wallow in these films for hours. The moment of discovery for the prisoners in The Exterminating Angel is my favorite moment in Bunuel's output; it's a pitch-perfect symphony of celebrated social error, and one of Bunuel's most refined expressions of classical Surrealism. I laugh, hard, each time I see it.

[MoonlitKnight]

I could wallow in these films for hours. The moment of discovery for the prisoners in The Exterminating Angel is my favorite moment in Bunuel's output; it's a pitch-perfect symphony of celebrated social error, and one of Bunuel's most refined expressions of classical Surrealism. I laugh, hard, each time I see it.

Indeed...now bring on "Tristana"!