I can fully appreciate that the great film maker, being a surrealist and anarchist, must have had mixed feeling after his Discreet Charm movie was such a hit amongst the bourgeoise, even my parents saw it back in the day at the local Odeon, the only film of his they would ever see. His 'revenge' then is this sublime mix and match outing with sequences of varying lengths which tend to end with one of the participants rushing off to start another. That the scenes don't join up in any accepted way causes confusion and some frustration ending in anger for some and unrestrained glee for others. What amazes me as much as anything about this film is that I have never seen it before and yet must have seen just about every other of the genius director's films. Hey ho, perhaps I'll watch it again to make up for it. Hope I haven't given away too much of the 'plot'!

This movie was no joke. Literally. I was completely lost the first time i had seen it. Before i was the kind of film lover who would just see film simply just to enjoy and didn't expect to really get anything out of it, may be educationally but surely not this level of intellectual outcome. The Phantom of Liberty, after explained and discussed in class by an excellent professor, i came to appreciate this film, and understand what it was trying to convey. I got so much out of this film. It had helped me to see a different side of the situation and be curious about things, the world and the people around me and to ask the what if question. I also like that it show the idea that life is full of random chances that we might encounter one day.

Watching The Phantom of Liberty is unlike any other film-watching experience. Buñuel presents a series of seemingly unrelated vignettes woven together by mere chance or coincidence. Just as Buñuel develops a character beyond their name or title, he whisks the viewer away to focus on another character and their experience. The film not only employs dream-logic through its surrealist mise en scéne, the film also has the pacing of a dream. Like the series of half- remembered dreams we have each night, each vignette leaves a vague impression of itself after its viewing; not to be consciously understood, yet its presence can be felt with each following scene. While there are core thematic ideas woven throughout the film regarding political and social satire, on first viewing it is hard not to get lost in the dreamy surreality of real-life that Buñuel so eloquently portrays in his 1974 masterpiece.

To begin, I had the opportunity to watch this movie as a student in a foreign film studies class. The professor literally spoke nothing of this film and just said to watch. Then the roller coaster I rode was amazing. Every scene just kept slapping me in different directions putting me in a state of exciting confusion. I understood nothing during my first watch. There was an ending scene where the director gave the audience just an ostrich looking towards the distance while gunshots rang in the background. We had a weekend gap before the professor gave us some context in the movie but that whole weekend just had me thinking. Wondering daily what the movie meant to the point where I lectured all my friends on it looking for something, a window of clarity. Then the day came and then he explained the movies point, to open the audience to the ideas that complete freedom can be dangerous and that you shouldn't take everything at face value, in a sense, question everything. This started a domino effect on the past memories of my life. In particular one English teacher that I had for three years in high school. His teaching methods were very different. He would break random pointing sticks and toss markers at the board, as well as slapping on random desk through out the class period. This caused me to just disregard him as crazy. When I saw this movie a second time it literally just brought me back to the class, and it answered the questions I never knew I had. This professor showed us a story that explained Plato's allegory of the cave. To those who aren't familiar with it, in summary, prisoners are chained up in a cave facing a wall for their entire lives. Behind them is a torch that reflected the shadows of those who passed by and for them, all they knew were the sounds of commotion and the images of the shadows. They knew nothing more. One day, a prisoner manages to escape the cave and witnesses the world. Sees buildings and people and society. To him its something amazing and never ever before seen. The only problem is when he comes back to tell the other prisoners but they just see him as crazy. Talking about things that to them seems impossible. This movie did that to me. It helped me escape my cave. After I saw this movie I began to see things differently and approach my decisions in life with more confidence because really, things aren't as big or as hard as our minds have been hardwired to believe they are. This movie made me feel free by the end of it. Made my doubts that I had in high school seem okay. It even inspired me to write some new stories to maybe make films about one day based on the ideas I had that society would see as just a teenager being a teenager. I am really proud to be human with ideas and just view points, and now I just flip things and look at them in different perspectives. I feel this movie exemplifies what it means to be an artist. Showing the world in ways that are not always the norm, which to me is a great from of expression. This movie has greatly opened my mind and I recommend it to any one in confusing times in their life. I really wish I had seen this movie earlier because it really just gave my weird teenage years of doubt purpose and meaning. I finally feel okay to be myself and express my art in the way I choose. In my acting and filming I am not afraid of my opinions anymore, and Im not afraid to break the rules in the art world. I am finally out of the cave.. and loving every minute of it.