Phantom of Liberty is a film about the impossibility of escaping the tyranny of convention in politics, society, and art…. Buñuel's anarchistic vision has remained constant. Man persists in denying his animal nature and creating a civilized code of laws and manners that only heightens his absurdity and intensifies his oppression. This theme lies at the center of all Buñuel's work; he never escapes it, and neither do we, his audience.

As in earlier films, the central social ritual is the dinner party, for it offers a prime example of how civilized man copes with his basic animal needs…. Using a Swiftian ironic reversal, in Phantom Buñuel reminds us that eating and shitting are merely opposite ends of the same biological process and that our culture's decision to glorify the former and forbid all mention of the latter is totally arbitrary…. [The] power of convention...