The Phantom of Liberty - Narrative Structure, Characters and Themes

Narrative Structure, Characters and Themes

The Phantom of Liberty is a film that celebrates the notion of chance encounters and takes this concept to ‘wage war’ on the very idea of story-telling. The overall structure of the film is one of seemingly unconnected episodes linked together by random encounters. The story is passed from one scene to the next as if the narrative is a relay race: the narrative ‘baton’ is passed on by means of a minor character from one scene becoming the next major character. When watching a film, we usually expect the various interlocking narratives to be revisited and the film to end with a clear resolution to each story. In this film, we are left wondering what will happen in each section and most of the characters do not reappear. As mentioned earlier, a number of the scenes in the film are taken from Buñuel's own experience and structured using the surrealist notion of automatism or stream of consciousness, where ideas are allowed to develop without the control of reason or aesthetics.

Buñuel outlines the film's themes in his autobiography as being:

• The search for truth and the need to abandon the truth as soon as you have found it.
• The implacable nature of social rituals.
• The importance of coincidence.
• The importance of personal morality.
• The essential mystery of all things.

The characters in the film, of which there are more than forty credited, are taken from a range of middle-class ‘types’. The characters are not particularly allowed to develop as personalities; they are more like a series of fairly sympathetic stereotypes that represent institutions and professions as diverse as: religious orders, doctors, nurses, the police, the military and the teaching profession. Each character appears to be subject to coincidence and have no control over their fate. Their situations appear to be the consequence of the social rituals, laws and morality that the Professor discusses at the police academy.

In its suggestion of various sexual transgressions, the film emphasizes how the concept of morality is a personal issue. The lack of explanation or resolution illustrates the mystery of nature or reality. This, coupled with its economic style, could allow you to use the text to interrogate perceptions of reality and conventions of realism.