"That Obscure Object of Desire"
Directed by Luis 
Bunuel 104 minutes, 1977

Bunuel depicts gender relations in imperialist 
society, as typified by those between a rich 
French man Mathieu perhaps three times older than 
the 18 year-old maid Conchita from Spain that he 
pursues. Here the cash-sex intersection is out in 
the open when Mathieu gives money to Conchita and 
her mother repeatedly and generously while going 
out with Conchita.

What is obscure about the object of desire--the 
maid who refuses to make love and comes up with 
endless excuses--is that she seems to have some 
independence, but for what reason we do not see. 
On the surface, she appears obsessed with showing 
that she is independent of the man who has much 
more money. Yet such displays of "independence" 
are themselves reactions to economic inequality 
and questionable even in their best form.

For MIM, the film is realistic but dangerously 
subtle. We could say that Conchita is obscure 
because she is tied up with terrorists or 
gangsters, and merely keeps a secret, but that 
would not fully answer why she does what she does.

Mathieu himself says in the film that Conchita 
could get much more money from him than he has 
given, so he rules out that the relationship is 
just about money. On the other hand, perhaps 
Conchita has simply decided to "string along" 
Mathieu in order to get more money on a long-term 
basis. Not surprisingly, Conchita manages to play 
the "virgin" Catholic role at first and ends up 
making money as a nude dancer later.

In real life, there are many reasons that wimmin 
behave like Conchita, so it does not have to be 
for money or for a terrorist cause directly. 
Nonetheless, we at MIM would like to see how many 
relationships like this one would continue to 
exist in a society with no commodity relations. 
Even people who do not need money or a terrorist 
cause will sometimes act as if they do because of 
what is happening in society-at-large.

Some will condemn both characters and some will 
imitate them--that is the problem with treating 
this subject in the manner Bunuel did without 
clear heroes and villains. On the other hand, it 
is in realities such as we see in this film that 
we can do the most to practice clarity on gender 
questions. Again we give this film a thumbs up for 
cutting through the crap to the essence of how 
capitalism twists humyn relationships. We suggest 
to our readers not to root for either character: 
the relationship is too twisted for either 
character or gender to fix without revolution.