That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) is a film that resists easy interpretation, and at its core stands one of cinema’s most enigmatic female characters: Conchita. Portrayed by two different actresses—Carole Bouquet and Ángela Molina—she is not just a woman, but an idea, an obsession, and a contradiction. Through this dual casting, Buñuel doesn’t just show us Conchita—he disorients us, making her beauty and sexuality feel dreamlike, intangible, and deeply provocative.
Carole Bouquet brings an icy elegance to the role. Her version of Conchita is poised, distant, and emotionally unreadable. She embodies the kind of beauty that commands attention without effort—chiseled features, flawless posture, and a voice like velvet. Her charm lies in her mystery, in the way she withholds as much as she offers. She’s captivating not because she tries to be, but because she seems so utterly untouchable.
In contrast, Ángela Molina brings warmth and sensuality to Conchita. Earthy, expressive, and emotionally charged, she plays the same woman with a different flavor of desire—one that burns rather than chills. Her version feels more grounded in physicality, more visceral. Where Bouquet’s Conchita is a distant flame, Molina’s is the fire you can feel on your skin. This duality complicates our perception of Conchita’s sexuality, presenting her as both temptress and innocent, manipulator and victim.
The film never allows us to settle on a single truth about Conchita, and that’s precisely the point. Her sexuality is not linear—it’s fragmented, weaponized, withdrawn, then suddenly offered again. Each shift in her portrayal underscores the idea that desire is not about the object itself, but what it evokes in the desirer. She is always just out of reach, and that elusiveness becomes her most powerful tool.
In That Obscure Object of Desire, Conchita is not a woman easily defined by beauty or behavior—she is a paradox. Through the dual performances of Bouquet and Molina, she becomes a prism through which desire is refracted, broken, and scattered. Her beauty is undeniable, her charm disorienting, and her sexuality—like the film itself—remains a riddle that refuses to be solved.
