That Obscure Object of Desire

“Luis Buñuel's masterpiece”

On a train out of Seville in the late 1970s, Mathieu (Fernando Rey), a wealthy Frenchman, empties a bucket of water onto a young woman standing on the platform. He then tells his fellow passengers how he came to do it, starting with Conchita, a nineteen-year-old flamenco dancer. Luis Buñuel has two actresses, Carole Bouquet and Ángela Molina, play her, and the story treats desire as a structure built from lies and small cruelties.