Eating is taboo, and relieving oneself is performed on a toilet at a communal table in Luis Buñuel's Le fantôme de la liberté. The farce strings together events from #Buñuel's life (who was 74 by the time he made this film), with dreams remembered by both Buñuel and co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière.

“Madrid was filled with the stench of – pardon my language – food. It was indecent.”

– le professeur des gendarmes

The title references the opening sentence from Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto (1848): “A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism.”. What follows is a wonderful, free-flowing pastiche performed by a sublime cast.

A carnival-like parade.

“Do you still go dancing at night? I've stopped going. There are no dance halls here. But that's not the only reason. I was used to dancing with you. I'm not comfortable with other girls.”

– Giovanni in a letter to Liliana

In this political satire criticising Czechoslovakia's “normalisation” period, a journalist learns about bank employee Bedrich Hroch, who – while attempting to determine how much #gold the local #zoo's hippopotamus' needs for a tooth replacement – is swallowed by the animal.

 

With the man happily residing inside the creature, his journalist friend hatches a plan to use the “talking hippo” for political means .

“Even you, Ear, can't listen in the toilet!”

– Ludvik