¡Hoy! It’s Burl! I’m here to review a picture for you, a
Luis Buñuel picture in fact! I’m a big Buñuel fan, but I’d never seen this one!
Ha ha, it reminded me an awful lot of another one of his movies that I’ve
already reviewed, Simon of the Desert!
That one was made in Mexico, though, and this one was made in fascist Spain! At
this distance I suppose it doesn’t make much of a difference, but it certainly
must have to Buñuel!
As a confirmed anticlerical, not to mention a well-known
anti-fascist, you might think he’d have been under the microscope after his
return to his Francofied homeland! And I guess he was, but he still just did
his thing and made exactly the movie he wanted to make, which bolsters my opinion
that old Luis might have been the Coolest Director In Cinema! Ha ha, if you
haven’t read his fantastic autobiography My
Last Sigh, get to it! It’s absolutely marvelous, ha ha!
Viridiana tells
the tale of the title character, a young and pious nun! The Mother Superior,
who seems to have been rented from the same outlet which provides all movie
Mother Superiors, orders her to go spend some time with her uncle, whom she
barely knows and would rather not visit! But she goes, and soon her reluctance
proves well-founded, for the uncle harbors a maniacal love for Viridiana! He
drugs and nearly rapes her, and then proposes! Ha ha, after her refusal and
rejection of him, the poor tormented beardo heads to the nearest tree to string
himself up with a skipping rope! (The skipping rope reappears throughout the
film, always used for different purposes, but I must confess that its
significance eluded me!)
After that, the uncle’s illegitimate son takes over the
estate, and a shaken Viridiana gives up the nunnery, but gathers up a parade of
hoboes as a new and more Christlike way of expressing her devotion! It works
out okay for a little while, but the hoboes eventually go wild with a little
hoboparty of their own! Then there’s a great ending which, like Simon of the Desert, involves a fantastic
pop song! Somebody should put together a compilation of the pop songs in Buñuel
movies! Ha ha, I’d buy it in a hot second!
It’s a terrific picture! It looks sharp, is frequently
funny, and confirms my belief that Buñuel was a real cameramaster! It’s not as plainly
enjoyable as some of his other pictures, like Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie I suppose, but it has a power and
simplicity all its own! I give it three and a half dogs leashed to cart axles!
