This movie criticizes the strangeness of etiquette with a hyperbolic tale of social rules gone wrong. No one can convince themselves to leave, apparently because no one else has left. Its not as though these rules of propriety have turned us into sheep, its that we were sheep to begin with, and these individuals with their nuanced rules are self-blinded of the suffering society around them. As time passes, or is made entirely meaningless, civility is eroded and these people are revealed to be the horny, hungry, irritable and fearful animals found in the rest of the animal kingdom and social classes. It took someone with a bit of free spirit who very early in the movie, before the whole trapped issue, lashes out by breaking a window for no explicit reason. She locks herself in a closet. People are murmuring to each other how she's still a virgin. They try so hard to turn everyone else into sheep just like them. They are fortunate that they failed.

I have to say that this is probably not eveyones "cup of tea"...but I really enjoyed it. Sure the basic premise has been done before to varying degrees...but you haven't seen this particular "morality tale" until you've seen it told as only Luis Bunuel can tell it. It is one of those films that, the more you think about it...the more you "see". There is so much going on and so much "symbolism" both subtle and blatant that I think you really need to watch it more then once to really "get it". And even then...I think there is much that Bunuel left to "your interpretation". Which I love.