A picaresque decimation of religious myth and mythology, fanaticism and piety. Unleashing his characteristic blend of mordant wit and ribald humor, Buñuel strikes a fatal blow on behalf of skeptics, atheists, and so-called heretics everywhere, forever securing his place in the annals of rationality.
At once oblique and instinctively cogent, closing a defining decade in the great director's career––in fact, one of the greatest in any filmmaker's––and preluding what would be the next chapter in his fruitful oeuvre, his self-described trilogy in "the search for truth." The Milky Way––precise; exacting; casually and gleefully profane––is the work of a master in rare form, gallantly exposing the artifice of religious doctrine.
Like all of Bunuel, this is an audacious and visually marvelous film. It tells the "story" of two men who stumble into several periods of history while on a religious pilgrimage. Worth a look just for the direction, but I found it to be too talky and lacking the forward momentum his other films possess. A minor work, in my opinion.
Uneven and ultimately unsatisfying religious satire from Luis Bunuel. There are only a handful of clever absurdist moments, but mostly it's just slow-paced and blandly talky, and not particularly funny or profound. Maybe it has greater impact if you come from a Catholic background, but it was lost on me - maybe I just didn't get it.
