Viridiana.

Review #2075: Viridiana.

Cast: 

Silvia Pinal (Viridiana), Francisco Rabal (Jorge), Fernando Rey (Don Jaime), José Calvo (Don Amalio), Margarita Lozano (Ramona), José Manuel Martín (El Cojo), Victoria Zinny (Lucia), Luis Heredia (Manuel 'El Poca'), Joaquín Roa (Don Zequiel - a beggar), Lola Gaos (Enedina), María Isbert (Beggar), Teresa Rabal (Rita) Directed by Luis Buñuel (#1383 - Él, #1723 - Los Olvidados, and #1884 - L'Age d'Or)

Review: 

“I didn’t deliberately set out to be blasphemous, but then Pope John XXIII is a better judge of such things than I am.”

 

The time had come at last for Luis Buñuel to return home to Spain, or at least return to a greater prominence. Well, if that's the way one wants to put it, anyways, because he was never really gone besides making a steady living ever since he left his native country for good once the nationalist forces led by Francisco Franco had fully taken control of the country (Buñuel of course had been busy during the Spanish Civil War as a coordinator of film propaganda for the Republic); Land Without Bread (1933), termed a "pseudo-documentary" and made in Spain, was his last film for over a decade. Gran Casino (1947) wasn't a great success with Mexican audiences, but it was the first of numerous features Buñuel made in Mexico, which would include varying levels of notability from Los Olvidados (1950) to Robinson Crusoe (1954; shot in Mexico in both English and Spanish). Cela s'appelle l'aurore (1956) saw him return to France for a time that resulted in two further productions. Interestingly, the film made right before Viridiana was The Young One (1960), an English-language production made in Mexico. Anyway, back to Viridiana, which Buñuel co-wrote with Julio Alejandro as a loose adaptation of the 1895 novel Halma by Benito Pérez Galdós; in 1959, they had adapted Galdos' Nazarin. The film received interest within festivals but was also called "blasphemous" by the Vatican and was banned in its native Spain for over a decade. At any rate, Buñuel made a variety of films wherever he could in either Mexico, Spain (he returned to direct Tristana in 1970) or elsewhere until his death in 1983 at the age of 83. 

Oddly enough, the ending of the film attracted more attention to it because of what ended up on screen rather than what wasn't seen. When checked for censorship, the ending was one key aspect that needed to be changed from what depicted a character deciding to open a door and close it right behind them...which, well, is certainly different when you consider the actual ending involves characters shuffling cards together. Even knowing that wouldn't prepare you for a film absorbed in vigor and satire for charity in the pious sense. It does not take too long to turn into a show for the macabre within its expressions of desire and a climax that involves, well, a supper that will surely remind folks of what happens when you shine a light on human desires and the imagery that comes with such grotesque nature, such as a crucifix that has a knife in it. The march for spiritualistic charity with the grace of God can only see a clash with the reality that comes in a materialistic world that cannot hide its foundation within the thin face of moral high ground. 90 minutes is more than enough to the indulgences of Buñuel in making a human comedy (whether one is religious or not) that shows futility with such damning effectiveness that asks just what the differences are between those little acts of charity and actual change. With all that in mind, the performances reflect well among the divide of beggars and choosers, as evidenced by the performance by Pinal that reflects upon the loss of one's innocence. She is thrust into a place of brutal honesty when dealing with the company of men that are reflected mostly within Rabal and Rey (the latter is mostly present for the first third of the feature), who each show the inner workings of who they are within how they treat the mansion each inhabit in their time. Calvo represents one of the numerous beggars that come to inhabit the rest of the film, whether that involves men of no sight in themselves (or souls), sores, or people with children to feed. By the time one sees a supper of the grotesque, it is a culmination of such dark amusement to find in the illusions of charity versus human nature. The cynic may not always be right, but one thing that is for certain is that there is no one true way to reaching a person in heart or health; buying a dog off a cart is one thing, not seeing as dog I a cart going the other way is another. In the end, after seeing people for who they are when it comes to giving and taking, one has to make their own path rather than let it fall into the hands of whatever dogma seems to be the right choice. With Buñuel at the helm, you know you are in for a mischievous display to see, and this film handles the task of dark human comedy handily.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Next up: South Korea sees a remake...in color.

L'Age d'Or

Review #1884: L'Age d'Or.

Cast: 

Gaston Modot (The Man), Lya Lys (Young Girl), Caridad de Laberdesque (Chambermaid and Little Girl), Max Ernst (Leader of men in cottage), Josep Llorens Artigas (Governor), Lionel Salem (Duke of Blangis), Germaine Noizet (Marquise), Duchange (Conductor), and Valentine Penrose (Spirit) Directed by Luis Buñuel (#1383 - Él and #1723 - Los Olvidados)

Review: 

I'm sure you are familiar with Un Chien Andalou (1929), the debut of Luis Bunuel to cinema in a collaboration with Salvador Dali. It was a short movie, lasting under thirty minutes that has endured in its imagery. They had met at the University of Madrid in 1917 while Bunuel was studying philosophy. They had a friendship filled with contentious arguments and creativity, which sprinkled heavily onto filmmaking. The earlier film for example, featured a scene of ants swarming around hands and a sliced eye because each had dreamt it, so as a film of surrealist principles without aiming for rational explanation, this makes considerable sense. One year later, Bunuel would have his feature debut with this film (translates to The Golden Age), albeit one that is just 63 minutes that is presented with title cards to tell elements of the story despite having sound (with French dialogue present). The film had attracted attention that led to a commissioned new project from the de Noailles family (Charles and Marie-Laurie). They owned a private cinema and would end up helping to fund other filmmakers with certain interests such as Man Ray. Bunuel would also serve as editor and co-writer of the music with Georges van Parys; every bit of footage shot by Bunuel made it into the film, which he shot sequentially. The resulting film (which grew from an idea of a short to a feature) damaged a friendship, led to a French far-right group throwing ink on the screen, and a critic calling the film one that dragged "country, family, and religion" into the mud. While there would be private exhibitions in subsequent years, distribution and public exhibition of the feature would not happen again until the late 1970s, since the de Noailles family withdrew it in light of the condemnations.

Dali and Bunuel had a falling out due to growing ideological disagreements - Dali later stated he was always an "anarchist and monarchist" while once angering Bunuel when he called him a "Communist and an atheist" in a book when Bunuel was in America. But hey, each became noted names in certain fields of film and art, things happen. Describing what happens in various moments seems redundant, but let's give it a try: scorpions, people sucking on fingers, an end sequence called "120 days of depraved acts" (referring to a famous work) that features someone with a long beard and white robe that resembles a certain figure, people writhing in the mud, people on fire that no one pays attention to, a blind man getting knocked over...you get the idea, I think. Of the noted five names in the cast, Modot and Lys were the only professional actors, while Penrose was a poet/author, Ernst was a painter/poet, and Artigas was a ceramic artist. The folks in the film generally work well with the flow of images because one doesn't need to say too much to portray hypocrisy and frustration. The film moves like a scorpion with frenzied movements in its vignettes before reaching the end with clear-tipped poison that will strike whoever dares to go in without a clear mind. It strikes the bourgeois hypocrisies that Bunuel saw in his times that still seem apparent now that can really be construed to one sentence: screw the rules. I welcome the boldness to yearn to engage in that primal desire to consummate without the thoughts of the church or society-at-large to act as a supposed moral guardian. Hypocrisy is in the eye of the beholder, whether one is horny or really, really hates the insanities of modern life. I think it works out pretty well in general interest, one with striking power after many decades without becoming an insult to one's patience. It provokes and examines things without preaching to you, and it is mostly effective in its pacing and presentation of imagery. Bunuel made one further film in the decade with the ethnofiction work Land Without Bread [Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan] before his hiatus, but the best was still to come for him. The fact that one could find this film on the Internet (along with the earlier short) means one could have an interesting time if one is looking for something in the realm of the surreal.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Los Olvidados.

Review #1723: Los Olvidados.

Cast: 

Stella Inda (Pedro's mother), Miguel Inclán (Don Carmelo), Alfonso Mejía (Pedro), Roberto Cobo ("El Jaibo"), Alma Delia Fuentes (Meche), Francisco Jambrina (The principal of the rural school), Jesús Navarro (Julián's father), Efraín Arauz ("Cacarizo"), Jorge Pérez ("Pelón"), Javier Amézcua (Julián), Mário Ramírez ("Ojitos"), and Ernesto Alonso (Narrator) Directed by Luis Buñuel (#1383 - Él)

Review: 

“[The cinema] is an instrument of poetry, with all that that word can imply of the sense of liberation, of subversion of reality, of the threshold of the marvelous world of the subconscious, of nonconformity with the limited society that surrounds us.”

If you think about it, no one really wants to see the truth displayed on the film screen. Sure, we can proclaim much as we want about our desire to see real life come out in film with no lingering artifice. Of course, it is also possible that this could apply to Luis Buñuel when it refers to which of his films have endured most in international perspectives. Most know of his shocking debut with the surrealist short Un Chien Andalou (1929), but just as important to mention is L'Age d'Or (1930), his feature debut that generated umbrage and curiosity over its place within surrealist cinema (a classic. After this, he made a pseudo-documentary with Land Without Bread [Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan] (1933), which generated a few years of furor upon release in Spain for its "defamation" (of course, asking certain folks from Las Hurdes wouldn't generate universal praise). After this, he worked a few years at Filmófono as an executive director in Spain's attempts at commercial filmmaking, which resulted in four features before the Spanish Civil War began in 1936. He moved to the United States before the war ended in 1939, but he could not make a mark in the Hollywood system despite his intense attraction to "American naturalness and sociability"; he worked instead in dubbing while also working with the Museum of Modern Art. The seeds to his return came because an old friend wanted to adapt a play into a film in Paris, with a stopover in Mexico City; the play adaptation went by the wayside, but they attracted interest to make a feature in the country, which was in the throes of what is referred to (the Golden Age in its cinema. At any rate, Buñuel made his return with Gran Casino (1947). Of course, we are not here to talk about that feature, because it isn't particularly remembered (his most notable feature done in Mexico. Los Olvidados (which translates to The Forgotten Ones, but it was known in the States as The Young and the Damned) is undoubtedly the most famous of the films he made in the country along with being the first film he did in his busiest decade as a director (he would make fourteen films in Mexico before he found opportunities to make films abroad in 1954 and 1956, although he did make a few more films in the country until 1965). Although he found his previous feature (El Gran Calavera, released the previous year) banal, its success meant that Buñuel was sought out exclusively by producer Oscar Dancigers. Buñuel first thought of a film about a lottery ticket seller kid, but Dancigers aimed to seek a more realistic depiction of struggling children living in the slums of Mexico City. Luis Alcoriza and Bunuel were credited with the screenplay, while dialogue collaborators left un-credited included Max Aub, Juan Larrea, and Pedro de Urdimalas; sure, one could think about neorealism when it comes to this film, because Bunuel was noted for his admiration of Vittorio De Sica's Shoeshine [Sciuscià] (1946).

Did I mention that this film did not receive immediate acceptance at the time? It didn't even take a week for the producer to pull the film, which received negativity because...yeah, I suppose one really can't just watch a movie about poverty without a little bit of fantasy. Imagine stoking the anger of not only the public but also the government as well, because having a narrator say that behind every beautiful city are poor children is probably too honest, as if country morale is going to decrease because of a movie. I guess having a character throw an egg at the camera is just too shocking to go alongside a slo-mo nightmare and a gut-punching finale (of course, there was an alternative ending shot, but it was lost for a few decades). Of course, when the film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, it received better notices, to where Buñuel won the festival prize for directing; awards really do seem to improve reputations (as opposed to the inverse effect), and the film is quite respected in its native country now. There are no moments to mount a sermon for easy solutions to preach here, which I suppose some could interpret as uncompromising. But that is the point, and it is the fact that we can still recognize the depravity that humanity can go when hope has flickered away like a dying wind that makes the film so striking and so memorable today. We may not like to see it, but we can still find someone like the folks depicted in this film, one that has endured for seven decades because of how it exposes the depravity that comes from the bottom without a plug to contain it, as if growing progress will always somehow leave someone behind. Rot is the center of what we see in the characters, played by a mix of actors and others that proves harrowing. Mejia and Cobo each lead the film with their own degree of rot that seems quite shocking when you see it from a child, which obviously means that it is quite effective, since you can see the distinct differences and similarities between them in how they face the dark world at large (i.e whether to try and run with the wave or to try and not become swept up by it). Inda represents rotted love of the most heartbreaking kind: a mother and her son; it reflects on society and its easy response to a cycle of depravity in which rejection is easier than confronting the afflicted. No one is spared in the cycle of poverty and rot, extending all the way down to Inclan and his portrayal of a blind man (of course, the actor was noted for his villainous roles within the country, so perhaps this wasn't as much a surprise), or a withering Fuentes, encased in the rot of youths. For a 76 minute film, it moves quite well for itself in maintaining its perspective on what it shows about poverty without becoming just a movie that says things about poverty, one that confronts the viewer without turning any blatant tricks, keeping the nightmare firmly on check - realism never looked so haunting with actors like these. Buñuel would have likely smirked at the idea of this being termed a comeback movie, but he certainly dared to keep making movies in his own distinct image because of the success that came from this one, which had their own varying levels of surreal or satirical edges that made him a true curiosity for the world stage.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Él.

Review #1383: Él.

Cast: 
Arturo de Córdova (Francisco Galván de Montemayor), Delia Garcés (Gloria Vilalta), Aurora Walker (Doña Esperanza Vilalta), Carlos Martínez Baena (Padre Velasco), Manuel Dondé (Pablo), Rafael Banquells (Ricardo Luján), Fernando Casanova (Lic. Beltrán), and Luis Beristáin (Raul Conde) Directed by Luis Buñuel.

Review: 
"[The cinema] is an instrument of poetry, with all that that word can imply of the sense of liberation, of subversion of reality, of the threshold of the marvelous world of the subconscious, of nonconformity with the limited society that surrounds us.” 

What can one say about Luis Buñuel that hasn't been said before? I am reminded of the fact that there have been over 800 directors featured on Movie Night, with a fraction of those being world cinematic directors. Buñuel has such a reach that I found myself doing a PowerPoint on him for my Introduction to Cinema class in college. In the course of a career that spanned two continents and 48 years, he made a total of 32 films in a life that found inspiration from numerous sources, with one film of importance being Fritz Lang's Destiny (1921), where he found that images could be the true means of expression. He soon moved from his native Spain (after having met future notable figures like Salvador Dali) to France, where he eventually found important influences such as Jean Epstein. After doing some assistant directing and work as a film critic, he collaborated with Dali on what would become his first film, Un Chien Andalou (1929), which was hailed by the surrealist movement of the time along with what Buñuel called the intellectual bourgeoisie (who he wanted to insult). It definitely is one of the most famous short films ever made, if not for the discussion over its content (or at least confusion over what it is). He would make two further films in L'Age d'Or (1930) and Land Without Bread (1933) while moving from France to Spain to the United States. While his next film would not be for over a decade, he worked in various ways around film, such as the dubbing department for Paramount and Warner Brothers, producer for Filmofono and for the Museum of Modern Art. In 1947, Buñuel found his way back into directing, this time in Mexico during what would soon become known as the Golden Age for Mexican cinema with Gran Casino. For the next few decades, Buñuel would spend time in various countries making films, with noted ones being Los Olvidados (1950), The Exterminating Angel (1962, which I saw clips for the aforementioned project), and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. 

The film was adapted by Buñuel and Luis Alcoriza from the novel Pensamientos by Mercedes Pinto, with inspiration being taken from memories of the husband that married Buñuel's sister, who was once paranoid enough to think that Buñuel was making faces at him and had to be convinced it wasn't him after he got his weapon ready. He felt that of all the films he made, this is the one that had the most of him in terms of autobiography, particularly in the main character. This film was shot in three weeks, with the eventual film proving a disappointment with audiences along with Buñuel in the quick conditions he had to make it in. Regardless of how the film turned out then, it is easy to say now that this is a well-done melodrama, one that touches upon repression in terms of religion (which Buñuel had grown up with before being disillusioned with it) and passion with a few surreal touches that goes along with a fair cast and cinematography from Gabriel Figueroa (who worked in both Mexican and American cinema for over 50 years). It is a claustrophobic movie to watch in its lead: a rich man with the power to attract people to him who is also quite deranged and jealous. In that sense, Córdova is up to task with plenty of furor to go around that is wrapped in paranoia and plenty of conviction to go with that, the kind of man who likes to view people from above as worms in the dirt. Garcés compliments him in this confinement with resilience, a person who tries to keep sane in a strange world wracked with trying to stoke a loveless marriage from death (which might prove true both figuratively and literally). The others prove just fine in providing perspective to the events depicted, with the highlight moment being at the end when Córdova's mind has its last breakdown, complete with cuts to an imagined responsive crowd. Ultimately, this is a haunting spectacle of perspective within romance and class that utilizes its 92 minutes wisely to make an interesting movie worth talking about today as a gem for world cinema. 

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.