The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie (1972) is a perfect example of a narrative film fragmenting into surreal dreamscapes. From its title alone, Luis Buñuel’s obvious target is middle-class idolatry but, for a film full of incredibly stark images, there is one visual motif which stands out from the other surrealist political attacks.

Discreet is punctuated, whether in dreams or reality (or perhaps both), by a recurring visual of the film’s six main characters walking endlessly along a country road. It is in this simple scenario where Discreet‘s most subtle political comments form.

The walking often marks the end of a scene or, occasionally, a dream sequence. The three men and three women walk in a rush along a roadway rather than on a pavement. There is no traffic and the surroundings are overtly rural; it could be the road where the pair of unfortunate cyclists from Robert Fuest’s horror film And Soon the Darkness (1970) meet their fate. Both films make the most of the eeriness of such a space; eerie not least in that its nervousness is a daytime phenomena rather than a more typical night setting.

There is, however, more to this visual than its simplistic description here belies. The pace of the walkers suggests a potential destination, their determinedness becoming more apparent as the film progresses. Are they late? Running from something perhaps? Yet, the group does not progress. In fact, it appears that they revert back to similar points earlier in the road, belying an ominous and endless treadmill purgatory.

The editing also give an oneric character to these moments, with each cut moving the arrangement of the six people into different places. In one cut, the couples of the group walk together but in a second cut, they are dispersed. Perhaps the image feels more surreal than it actually is because of its unexplained placement in the film. Taken alone, it is nothing more than a simple, unexplained image.

It is never mentioned or acknowledged by any of the characters either. Even in the overt dream sequences, the most surreal of moments are concluded with a character waking up, highlighting that all before it was a dream. These segments have no such clarity, instead popping up as if taken from an entirely different narrative altogether. Added to this are the clothes of the group which are clearly more fitting for the various social occasions the film is built around. They are all dinner-party smart but appear to have taken a wrong turn and ended up in the countryside.

Buñuel initially wanted the characters of the segment to grow wearier as the film progresses, later dropping the idea in fear that it would be too obviously symbolic. The scenario does still retain its sense of symbolism (it is, after all, disconnected from the any semblance of the main narrative so has no other real function), but what symbolism can this be?

Throughout the film, Buñuel connects the bourgeoisie to a very strict, urban or suburban dwelling. They blend in with their lavish backdrops, opulent houses and offices, a social camouflage hiding their immoral indulgences such as drug smuggling or casual affairs with each other. In the flat landscape of the countryside, the characters have nowhere to hide, no camouflage to suit the vegetation. They stick out a mile. Therefore, they are forced to do the only thing possible for an animal out in the open: get moving.

The landscape highlights their dreariness, effectively removing the Wizard of Oz curtain of their power. Their dangerousness is their ordinariness; their true colours more obvious when in contrast to a backdrop in which they cannot disappear under tables or into bedrooms.

And so they walk. Buñuel forces them into a situation in which they can do nothing but stand out for all to see. The act of walking, one which they rarely are ever shown to do more than a few feet in the rest of the film, is a torment, a humiliation. They have no destination in spite of attempts at showing the confidence that suggests a potential end to their walk. They appear to know where they are going. But how many fallible managers or bosses have you recognised with that same Wile E. Coyote-faith in running off the cliff? Probably many.

On and on they walk until the very last shot of the film. Buñuel may have shot them with a sub-machine gun minutes before (and in the safety of their own house and before eating as well) but this final, unending punishment of endless walking is the director’s ultimate attack upon the group.

It ultimately reminds of a quote from Rebecca Solnit whose words, in spite of discussing the positive release that walking provides rather than the negative, also provides the reverse that Buñuel seizes upon and sentences his bourgeoisie to. ‘Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors disconnected from each other’, she wrote. ‘On foot everything stays connected, for while walking, one occupies the spaces between those interiors in the same way one occupies those interiors. One lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it.’

It is the hellish level playing field they have always dreaded, blisters and all. And so they walk for eternity.