That Obscure Object of Desire

A wealthy Frenchman dumps water on a young flamenco dancer after boarding a train and proceeds to tell his fellow passengers of their tale of unrequited love. He hired her as a maid, and she allows him to chase her despite seemingly never intending to be his lover. Inspired by the book “La Femme et le pantin” by Pierre Louÿs., Iconoclastic Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel bade “adios” to admirers and detractors alike with 1977’s That Obscure Object of Desire (Cet Obscur Objet du Desir) is no less challenging and outrageous than the director’s earlier films. Bunuel “regular” Fernando Rey plays a wealthy, obsessive S&M freak who falls in love with a beautiful Spanish maiden, played in some scenes by Carole Bouquet, in others by Angela Molina (Why two actresses? Bunuel never explains). Arranging to hire the girl as a maid, Rey becomes her willing emotional slave, enduring her insistence upon withholding sex from him while she parades around with a younger lover. No matter how badly the girl treats Rey (she protests that she loves him, even as she habitually walks out on him) he is willing to follow her to the ends of the earth–or at least to the out-of-nowhere terrorist bombing that climaxes this film. That Obscure Object of Desire was based on Pierre Louys’ novel The Woman and the Puppet, previously filmed in 1929, 1935 (as Josef Von Sternberg’s The Devil is a Woman) and 1960.