The Milky Way (1969, Luis Buñuel) (Patreon)

37/100

Ignore the rating, which should really be N/A...or maybe N/I, for "not interested." Indeed, I'm surprised that virtually everyone seems to roll with this satirical compendium of historical heresies, given that the most devoutly religious cinephile I know noted, upon second viewing, that he was "not theologically literate enough to see how brilliant [it] is" the first time around. Absent that knowledge, plus a keen desire to watch Christian dogma get challenged/debated, there's precious little to grab hold of here; while being an atheist obviously doesn't preclude enjoying Buñuel's attacks on the church (I quite like both Viridiana and Simon of the Desert), The Milky Way's anecdotal structure, combined with a comparative lack of Discreet Bourgeoisie-style absurdity, makes giving a damn about what the faithful do and don't believe a prerequisite. I couldn't care less about transubstantiation or Jansenism or whether the Holy Trinity means that God is three entities as opposed to one entity with three forms (possibly I've misapprehended the nature of that last schism, but—and I really can't emphasize this strongly enough—WGAF, NM) and hence might as well have been stuck deep in a crowded row of the wrong conference hall, hearing the words spoken but unable to connect with them on any useful level. Occasionally, Buñuel's scabrous sense of humor would appear to surface, but the jokes, if jokes they were, went over my head, e.g. I couldn't tell you why it's funny when someone says that Muslims are now Catholics and Jews are, too, even more so. Hahahahaha? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Endurable thanks to many fine actors (Edith Scob as the Virgin Mary, Michel Piccoli as the Marquis de Sade, Delphine Seyrig as The Prostitute) and some beguiling locations; I'm perfectly happy to pronounce this not my thing, but I also kinda don't believe some of y'all who claim that it is yours. Rarely does one seem such unanimity about something so abstruse.