1962 film by Spanish Surrealist Luis Bunuel. An typical upper class formal dinner party at a mansion takes an strange turn: the guests become sequestered in a couple of rooms and for some reason, cannot leave. The film documents the breakdown of the thin veneer of civility as they run out of food and water.
This will seem familiar to many viewers who were brought up on the Twilight Zone, Edgar Allan Poe, Lord of the Rings and Steven King. In fact, this situation is a popular trope in a variety of situations: trapped in an invisible Dome, a castle during a plague, on a railway or subway car, jet, ship, spacecraft or marooned on an island or alien planet.
Bunuel includes his usual surrealistic bits in this mordant commentary on the bourgeoisie during the Fascist Franco regime in Spain.
Somehow, neither C or I had seen this during our long film watching careers.
Yes! A familiar trope, but well done.
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