A group of aristocrats gather for a lavish dinner party at the mansion of Señor Edmundo Nóbile and his wife Lucía. After dinner, the party migrates to the house’s music room where Guest Blanca plays a piano sonata. When the party winds down, rather than leave, the Guests make preparations to sleep in that very room. They are each confused by the choice and yet continue to lay down on chairs, sofas, and even the ground. In the morning, the reason for the impromptu sleepover becomes understood: try as they might, they are all incapable of leaving the room, as if a magic forcefield prevents them from even trying to take a step out. And out on the street, we learn that police officers, reporters, clerics, and even the Guests’ children are incapable of entering the house in the very same way. Over the next few days, the group begins to devolve, growing hungry, thirsty, irritated, desperate, backstabby, and animalistic. A pipe in the wall is tapped for water and sheep, loose in the house, are captured for food; in a closet, porcelain vases become putrid potties. A man dies. Others commit suicide. But right before more life is lost, Guest Leticia encourages everyone to sort of ‘finish the moment’ that started this chaos and the batch are freed from the terrifying curse—for now.
“The Exterminating Angel” is like an episode of The Twilight Zone crossed with Downton Abbey, and painted with the claustrophobic aesthetic of “12 Angry Men”. But whereas “Men” slowly sheds its uncertainty to arrive at a spirit-lifting conclusion, this film delights in never ever explaining itself. And while it is critically praised, I didn’t have the patience for it. Perhaps if the plot was tighter, I could have gotten behind it (the original Twilight Zone episodes never exceeded 51 minutes), but I didn’t find the story entertaining enough to carry my interest. I believe there was power in watching the “upper class” devolve into animals. I watched their niceties and polite mannerism slowly shed away as scarcity and mortality drove them to speak and act on their truest feelings. I also now understand that the film, made by famous Spanish-Mexican director Luis Buñuel, is black comedy cracking at the Francoist upper class, “trapped in their own bourgeois cul-de-sac”—but this a admittedly a historical blind spot for me. Thoughtful and mysterious, this film both dragged and yet flew over my head. When the ‘curse’ reasserted itself at the end, I feared I would be in for another dreary 90 minutes; luckily, the film sparred us.