The special quality of Bunuel’s late, storyteller’s style is that there are no layers, nothing hidden; that’s what makes it so serene.

[Bunuel's] film is filled with small, droll touches, with tiny peculiarities of behavior, with moral anarchy, with a cynicism about human nature that somehow seems, in his hands, almost cheerful.

From Un Chien Andalou to That Obscure Object of Desire, Luis Buuel spent almost 50 years cataloging the frustrated romantic desires of his characters.

She may be a maddening sphinx—but Buñuel seems to suggest that his alter ego does, indeed, deserve just such treatment.