The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Director: Luis Buñuel
Year Released: 1972
Rating: 2.5

Three couples - from a more financially 'privileged' class - try to sit down and have a meal together but keep getting stopped by various outside forces (the police, the military, terrorists) - there's also a priest who moonlights as a farmer and a soldier who has very detailed dreams.  I chalked it up to young age (I was only in college) when I first saw this and it didn't have much of an effect on me - now that I'm seeing it twenty years later, I appreciate the flights of fancy a little more than I did, but the fact that Buñuel (who worked on the script with Jean-Claude Carrière) clearly holds his characters in such contempt and relishes toying with them kind of sours it for me (the same could be said for the "it was all a dream" moments which may be ironic but still feel cheap).  There's a remoteness to it that keeps the viewer at a safe distance, where it's presumably easier to share the same disdain.