Silvia Pinal on The Exterminating Angel
A biting satire of bourgeois frivolity, the 1962 surrealist masterpiece The Exterminating Angel is one of Spanish auteur Luis Buñuel’s most macabre creations. In this follow-up to the scandalous, Palme d’Or–winning Viridiana, Silvia Pinal and an ensemble of Buñuel regulars star as high-society friends invited to a mansion for a dinner party, which takes a turn for the bizarre when the guests find themselves unable to leave. Shot by celebrated Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, and rife with the visual fetishes and dense symbolism characteristic of Buñuel’s most daring work, this stinging attack on the idle rich continues to resonate with the director’s admirers—including composer Thomas Adès, whose ambitious opera adaptation of the film premiered earlier this year.
To celebrate the film’s arrival on Blu-ray tomorrow, we’re sharing a clip from an interview with Pinal conducted in 2006 for our edition. Below, the Mexican star places The Exterminating Angel in a contemporary context, declaring it a precursor to today’s reality-show phenomenon.
