The Exterminating Angel (Spanish: El ángel exterminador) is a 1962 Mexican surrealistblack comedy film written and directed by Luis Buñuel. Starring Silvia Pinal and produced by Pinal's then-husband Gustavo Alatriste, the film tells the story of a group of wealthy guests who find themselves unable to leave after a lavish dinner party, and the chaos that ensues. Sharply satirical and allegorical, it contains a depiction of the aristocracy that suggests they "harbor savage instincts and unspeakable secrets".[1]
After a night at the opera, Edmundo and Lucía Nóbile host eighteen wealthy acquaintances at a dinner party at their mansion. The servants inexplicably begin to leave as the guests are about to arrive; by the time the meal is over, only Julio, the majordomo, is left. Lucía cancels a planned surprise involving a bear and three sheep upon discovering that guest Sergio Russell does not like jokes, but there are a few strange occurrences, such as the guests somehow entering the mansion and going upstairs twice, Edmundo repeating his toast to the opera singer Silvia, and Cristián Ugalde and Leandro Gomez greeting each other three times (as strangers, cordially, and antagonistically).
The guests mingle before adjourning to the salon to listen to Blanca play a Paradisi keyboard sonata. When she finishes, she says she is tired, and several other guests indicate they are about to go home, but no one does. Instead, without discussing it, the guests and hosts settle in and spend the night in the salon, preventing Lucía from sneaking off for a tryst with Colonel Alvaro Aranda.
In the morning, it is discovered that Sergio is unconscious. The hosts and some of the guests wonder why no one attempted to leave the night before. A few guests try to exit the salon, but they all turn back or become distressed and stop before crossing the threshold. When Julio brings some leftovers for breakfast, he is trapped as well.
By that evening, everyone is on edge. They are using a closet as a toilet and have run out of clean water. Raúl blames Eduardo for their plight, but Leticia defends the host. Sergio dies during the night, and Dr. Carlos Conde and Alvaro hide the corpse in a closet.
A crowd of onlookers, police, and soldiers gathers outside the gates of the mansion over the following days; no one is able to enter, although there is no physical barrier. The trapped individuals get water by tapping into a pipe in the wall, but their good manners continue to deteriorate. A growing number of them become ill, and Dr. Conde has no medicine until Edmundo shows him a stash of opiates, which some of the guests sneak for themselves.
At a particularly heated moment, the trapped group sees the three sheep and bear roaming the mansion. The sheep wander into the salon, where they are caught and roasted on a fire in the middle of the room. Eduardo and Beatriz, a young engaged couple, kill themselves in a closet.
One night, all of the Nóbiles' servants are drawn back to the mansion. Inside, Raúl has convinced most of the other guests that their predicament will end if Edmundo dies. Dr. Conde attempts to reason with them, and a fight breaks out, the doctor assisted by Alvaro and Julio. Edmundo and Leticia come out of the curtained-off area they have begun to inhabit, and Edmundo offers to take his own life. He produces a small pistol he had hidden, but Leticia tells him to wait. She notices that all of the people and furniture are in the same spot as the night of the party, and has Blanca play the end of the piano sonata and everyone repeat the conversation that followed. This time, when Blanca says she is tired, the group can leave the salon and then the mansion. The members of the small crowd outside see them exit and are able to pass through the gates to greet them.
To give thanks for their salvation, most of the group from the salon attend a Te Deum service. Afterwards, neither the clergy nor the churchgoers can leave the cathedral. The military fires on a group of people waiting in front of the cathedral while a flock of sheep enters the building.
The film was shot in less than six weeks, from January 29 to March 9, 1962.[4] American actress Marilyn Monroe traveled to Mexico during that period, and her trip included a visit to Churubusco Studios, where the film was being made. She visited the set and met Buñuel, cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, and the cast.[5][6][7]
Release and reception
The Exterminating Angel premiered at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, and was released in theaters in Mexico on October 1, 1964, to critical acclaim.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 93% based on 27 reviews, with an average score of 9.0/10. The site's consensus reads: "Societal etiquette devolves into depravity in Luis Buñuel's existential comedy, effectively playing the absurdity of civilization for mordant laughs".[8]
Though Buñuel never explained how to interpret the film, leaving it to each viewer to decide, American film critic Roger Ebert wrote a lengthy interpretation of the film as symbolic of class conflict: "The dinner guests represent the ruling class in Franco's Spain. Having set a banquet table for themselves by defeating the workers in the Spanish Civil War, they sit down for a feast, only to find it never ends. They're trapped in their own bourgeois cul-de-sac. Increasingly resentful at being shut off from the world outside, they grow mean and restless; their worst tendencies are revealed".[1]
Scholar Robert Stam said in his book Reflexivity in Film and Literature: From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc Godard that the film "is structured on the comic formula of a slow descent from normality into anarchy ... The 'Angel' executes a mission of social justice, an apocalyptic laying low of the noble and the powerful".[13]
Influence on the horror genre
In a 2020 piece on the horror film website Bloody Disgusting, Samuel Pierce noted parallels between The Exterminating Angel and contemporary horror cinema, writing: "Within the film's already fascinating plot, there's plenty of poignant social commentary that will be just as familiar to horror fans. Though the film can be interpreted a number of ways, many of its themes are undeniable and as relevant today as they ever were. We see isolation drive madness. We see tribes form in times of strife. We see murder become more and more appealing. More than anything, however, The Exterminating Angel explores the hypocrisy of the social elite and the thin strands of society that keep them from utter depravity".[14]
Rather than a precursor to many contemporary horror films, some critics have classified The Exterminating Angel as a horror film itself. For example, Jonathan Romney of The Guardian called it a straightforward "claustrophobic horror story",[15] and film scholar Jonathan Rosenbaum classified it as "comic horror".[16]
Cultural references
Cabaret Voltaire named the intro and outro tracks of their 1994 album The Conversation "Exterminating Angel".
The 2002 Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Older and Far Away" references the film when a set of characters is unable to leave a house after a party. Initially, the characters seem psychologically unable to leave, but later they desire to leave and physically cannot due to a spell.[citation needed]
Woody Allen's 2011 film Midnight in Paris has the main character, Gil, travel back in time to 1920s Paris and suggest a story to a perplexed young Buñuel about guests who arrive for a dinner party and cannot leave. Allen references the film again in Rifkin's Festival (2020).
In October 2021, Vernal & Sere Theatre staged a world-premiere theatrical adaptation of The Exterminating Angel in Atlanta, GA.[18]
Composer Stephen Sondheim announced a collaboration with playwright David Ives in October 2014, developing a new musical with a plot inspired by both The Exterminating Angel and Buñuel's 1972 film The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.[19] Projected openings were deferred and production ceased at some point,[20] but the composer held a September 2021 reading for Square One.[21][22] Following Sondheim's death, Ives announced the musical, renamed Here We Are, which had a world premiere in September 2023 at The Shed.[23]
^"Tiempo Y Narración En el ángel Exterminador" [Time and Narration in The Exterminating Angel]. Xdoc.com (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 4 August 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2022. Efectivamente, el tiempo de realización fue escaso para una película como esta que se rodó en a penas dos meses, del 29 de enero al 9 de marzo de 1962 (54 días). Un tiempo realmente corto, considerando la complejidad que supone tener, en muchas veces, a los 22 actores conviviendo en el mismo plano. [Indeed, the production time was short for a film like this, which was shot in barely two months, from January 29 to March 9, 1962 (54 days). A really short time, considering the complexity of having, on many occasions, the 22 actors living together on the same shot.]
^Chávez, Ericka (31 July 2022). "Ana Martín conoció a Marilyn Monroe en su juventud: contó cómo fue su encuentro". Univisión (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 31 July 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2022. En su paso por los Estudios Churubusco, visitó el set de la película El ángel exterminador, de Luis Buñuel. De esa ocasión incluso hay algunas fotografías de Marilyn Monroe junto al mencionado director de cine, el fotógrafo Gabriel Figueroa y otras estrellas. [During her time at the Churubusco Studios, she visited the set of the film The Exterminating Angel by Luis Buñuel. From that occasion there are even some photographs of Marilyn Monroe together with the aforementioned film director, photographer Gabriel Figueroa and other stars.]
^Stam, Robert (1992) [1985]. Reflexivity in Film and Literature: From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc Godard (reprint ed.). Columbia University Press. p. 185. ISBN9780231079457.
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