Le Grand Amour: Pierre Étaix

I've heard people describe Pierre Étaix's Le Grand Amour as Buñuelian. But while it may indulge in some bizarre, surrealistic imagery—my favorite sequence involves the protagonist having a dream where his bed becomes a car, drives into the countryside, and encounters multiple other car-beds being driven by people in their pajamas—Le Grand Amour simply isn't mean-spirited enough to be properly Buñuelian. While Étaix was more than capable of feeling cynical and perhaps even pessimistic (see his 1971 documentary Land of Milk and Honey), he was never cruel or mean-spirited. And, in my opinion, that was what made his work stand apart from his contemporaries.

7/10