La Fantome De La Liberte (aka Phantom Of Liberty) (1974)

It begins in 1880 Toledo, Spain as Napoleonic soldiers desecrate a Catholic church before it jumps to modern day Paris where a strange man lures little girls away and gives them "dirty" postcards and from then on a continual surrealistic journey from the dark wit of Luis Bunuel. This was his follow up film to his acclaimed DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE and they share an absurdist fragmented nature. But it lacks CHARM's precise focus and while that film had a core group of characters through out the film, LIBERTE is a series of black comedy sketches. Fortunately, most of them quite amusing. Bunuel plays on what society deems as proper and what isn't as in the much talked about scene where people gather around a table on toilet seats doing their business while engaging in polite conversation but excuse themselves to go to a small room to eat something in private or how we deliberately overlook the obvious (the "missing" child sequence). Poking fun at conventional morality was a Bunuel specialty and he's having a great time here. So will you. The large cast includes Monica Vitti, Michel Piccoli, Jean Claude Brialy, Adriana Asti, Michael Lonsdale, Adolfo Celi, Jean Rochefort and Marie France Pisier.