I love a Buñuel film. Way back in the first film class I took we watched Los Olvidados, which wasn’t as strange or fantastic as what came later, but it definitely had a hint of what else was going on. And I remember that first time watching Simon of the Desert, being surprised and delighted by its commitment to exploding the story of an ascetic into so many strange directions.
But The Exterminating Angel is something singular. There’s the satire element, showing supposedly refined upper class people falling to pieces the longer they are stuck in the same room with each other. And there’s the unnamed existential dread responsible for the chaos.
That element really keeps me coming back. There’s no explanation for why they stay, or why they’re eventually allowed to leave. Everyone just has this sense that something is wrong, and that there’s no way to move past the threshold of the room without inviting whatever terror lies beyond.
And so they carry on, knowing that what they’re experiencing is filthy, angry, and causing them to turn on each other at an increasing rate… but somehow they all believe that to leave the current terrible state would only lead to something worse.
It’s an element that makes this something much more than poking fun at aristocrats. Even though we may feel nothing in common with them on the surface, that nameless dread feels relatable. It doesn’t necessarily soften anything about our view of who these people are and the things they do to each other. But it reminds us that this isn’t as simple as a punishment for hubris. This isn’t some divine comeuppance.
We are all dancing on a thread, and should it snap, we all go down. The difference comes in how we fall.
This Builds Character 
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