Ramiro de la Mata (Fernando Soler), is in a prison house, drunken, next to other men of equal condition. He leaves prison, goes home, where successively his brother Ladislao (Andrés Soler), his butler Juan (Antonio Monsell), his sister-in-law Milagros (Maruja Grifell), his son Eduardo (Gustavo Rojo), all ask him for money to pay for his trivialities, and Ramiro without problem finances those excesses. The daughter of Ramiro, Virginia (Rosario Granados), is engaged, that night is the party to ask for her hand, but he does not approve his future son-in-law. Ramiro overdoes himself, gets completely drunk again, to the extent of arriving at the party of commitment of his daughter totally boozy, frightening the boyfriend and his family, canceling the commitment over the scandal. Gregorio (Francisco Jambrina), another brother of Ramiro, warns the poor situation of the widower, and organizes with the family, taking advantage of a strong fainting of Ramiro, that all pretend economic ruin, they even move to a precarious neighborhood, he intends Ramiro to learn to value money, to change his life. But Ramiro, first frightened, discovers the truth and ends up turning the farce back to his family, he gets everybody to think that bankruptcy is actually real, and are they the ones killing themselves by working to survive. Finally the family benefits from the farce, change all their ways of life, work now, and Virginia finds new love in Pablo (Ruben Rojo).
This film is soon notticed as what it is, a kind of cinematic rehearsal of the filmmaker, who is encouraged to prove himself with some audiovisual techniques, as if he wanted to grease himself after so many years of inactivity, with more freedom and less pressure than at
Gran Casino. We see him rehearsing a camera looseness that will not disappear during the film, a camera with appreciable freedom of movement, with delicate travellings to follow the characters (most of times to Ramiro, central axis of the film), but also zooms, zooms in and out that expedite the visual narration, certainly Buñuel re-took the techniques of the cinematographic office. The film is converted into a platform of experimentation, of rehearse, sequence shots that replaced some still separated shots, reverse angle shots, there are faded to black shots, chained frames, etc; in a technical sense, the director continues with the initiated in
Gran Casino. We also see the resource of distorting the image to portray the awakening of Ramiro to his "new life", when his family starts the charade; this resource has already been used previously in the surrealist films,
An Andalusian Dog (1929) and
The Golden Age (1930), but with a completely different intentionality. Now, it has a more "conventional" intention, to capture the awakening of Ramiro's drunkenness, something more concrete and normal compared to the endless deliriums of those dreamlike works. After surreal exercises and
Las Hurdes (1933), more than one will find it improbable to appreciate this type of work from Buñuel, and the truth is that those were peculiar years, with Buñuel working in Hollywood, working in film dubbing, moving away from the work of filmmaker; until influential producer Oscar Dancigers brought him back to work in Mexico, after an absence of almost fifteen years without directing on the set. After
Gran Casino, Buñuel learned the lesson, he did not want another film like that, he configures this work of vaudeville-like tone, frivolities, lightness, laughable and simple situations, courtesy of Ramiro's profit-seeking relatives; simple plot that does not really differ much from the Mexican debut, but that has very different final results. A story with a happy moral, because everyone has had a severe existential epiphany, Milagros has stopped pretending, she is no longer a fake chronic ill, Ladislao has stopped being incorrigible lazy and even plans to open a factory and work himself in it, Eduardo now values the money and returns with seriousness to the university; everyone has changed their approach to their lives substantially.
The film has a very humorous beginning, with the bunch of drunks lying on top of each other as a single mass, without distinguishing the legs of anyone, and then sliding one of the Buñuelianos fetishes: the feet, because the first thing we see of the protagonist, and of all the prisoners of the first sequence, is his feet, a very eloquent and funny presentation of the film. Buñuel continues, with equal efficiency as hilarity, continues diagraming the protagonist, still drunk, at home, attending to all his relatives, even his butler lives of the money that wastes the boss. And Ramiro gets satisfied all of them by sending one by one to his office for a check to pay their frivolities, without even losing his drunkenness, and is from that drunkenness where much of the hilarity of those first sequences is born. The sequence of Ramiro's drunkenness on Virginia's engagement night was vital for Buñuel, finishing drawing that character, and although the actor's interpretation of the script was sublimated, it is the definitive sequence of the pathetic ruin in which was found the character, is the turning-point situation. Once again, the fetish of the feet, Ramiro's shoe, will open up, an image that opens a new narrative moment of the film, because if before it presented the drunkard in jail, now it portrays him with changed status, he has gone from being a rich and carefree drunk, to be a supposed ruined, without money and in misery; the pierced shoe is a silent image representative of this. Then we appreciate another Buñuelian trait, and it is his well-known aversion to kisses, being this markedly striking when Virginia frustrates attempts to kiss from her initial fiance; not even a couple about-to-get-married, on the night of their engagement party, is enough for Buñuel to show a kiss on camera. Then Virginia again represses the kiss, now with Pablo, but Buñuel uses an ingenious and funny contraption, because the kiss happens in offscreen space, out of frame, we do not see it, we hear it by the loudspeaker he left on his car; it is repeated again at the end, and shows that detail so typical of filmmaker. Another Buñuelian element par excellence, sex, the sexual impulse, is now printed in a very suggestive way, with Virginia and Pablo talking, he declaring his love to her, while they suck their ice cream, feeling almost an echo of the suggestive sequence of Jorge Negrete and Libertad Lamarque in
Gran Casino, moving a stick in the oil mud. Also Virginia, when Pablo finally declared, responds "already must have cooled", playing the double meaning of the engine, and of the erotic impetus of Pablo, repressed, as so often in the films of Buñuel; this acquires other nuances with the moments of kisses that are heard in loudspeaker, a very curious resource in the cinema of Buñuel.
Probably the reason for the disparate result of this film with respect to
Gran Casino rests on several factors, for instance there is no more the sabotage of the industry to Jorge Negrete, nor the meddling of Libertad Lamarque looking for hew a name in the Mexican cinematographic industry with this film; the actors were no longer negative influence, diametrically opposed situation with Soler and his formidable contribution, generating firm mutual respect with Buñuel, something proven in the future collaborations between both, in addition to which Buñuel repeatedly in the future professed praise to the Mexican acting referent. In addition to this, Buñuel was already more knowledgeable, knowing the Mexican industry, having lost some of the pressure of his first Mexican film, there is a greater freshness and freedom in the filmmaker that is translated to the film. Fernando Soler has therefore had an undeniable weight in the film, not only being the main actor and producer (he even initially was going to be the director, a possibility that Soler dismissed as he considered it too exhausting, suggested a "practical" filmmaker, and the choice fell on Buñuel), because the technical script of the film is in Spain, in which numerous handwritten annotations that came from the actor can be appreciated; but that ended up being positive, because those welcomed intrusions freed the Aragonese director enough, allowing him to focus his attention on other filmic needs. This situation is unprecedented and unheard of in a Buñuelian film, the filmmaker working in such a changing way, allowing so many changes on the march, during the filming, because these entries are numerous, many of them from the director's own hand. These annotations modified both dialogues and some shots, the final assembly differed from what was initially planned in many sequences, although the modifications were not substantial, and in this regard the book of the student of Buñuel's work, Professor Amparo Martínez Herranz, throws vital lights. Extremely comical details will be distributed during the film, many of them product, with a high probability, of those spontaneous modifications during the shooting. It is an alimentary film, a work in which Buñuel probably felt that he should not seek greater pleasures or gratifications at the level of artistic achievement, it was an exercise to recover the credit, to try again to gain a place in the Mexican scene, since he even considered leaving Aztec lands. And the film fulfills its mission, and without marveling, again elevates Buñuel as an efficient, economic filmmaker, shows new virtues of the filmmaker, which in turn serves to pave the way to his genuine artistic interest,
Los Olvidados. The versatility of Buñuel is undoubtedly shaped, after the surrealist beginnings, after
Las Hurdes, after the Hollywood dubbing, now the director "normalizes", proves that he is able to make more conventional cinema, commercial cinema, as he considered, works in a location as unthinking as Mexico, and not only works there, but generates masterpieces. Buñuel had succeeded in proving that he was a total master of cinema.
Ramiro de la Mata (Fernando Soler), is in a prison house, drunken, next to other men of equal condition. He leaves prison, goes home, where successively his brother Ladislao (Andrés Soler), his butler Juan (Antonio Monsell), his sister-in-law Milagros (Maruja Grifell), his son Eduardo (Gustavo Rojo), all ask him for money to pay for his trivialities, and Ramiro without problem finances those excesses. The daughter of Ramiro, Virginia (Rosario Granados), is engaged, that night is the party to ask for her hand, but he does not approve his future son-in-law. Ramiro overdoes himself, gets completely drunk again, to the extent of arriving at the party of commitment of his daughter totally boozy, frightening the boyfriend and his family, canceling the commitment over the scandal. Gregorio (Francisco Jambrina), another brother of Ramiro, warns the poor situation of the widower, and organizes with the family, taking advantage of a strong fainting of Ramiro, that all pretend economic ruin, they even move to a precarious neighborhood, he intends Ramiro to learn to value money, to change his life. But Ramiro, first frightened, discovers the truth and ends up turning the farce back to his family, he gets everybody to think that bankruptcy is actually real, and are they the ones killing themselves by working to survive. Finally the family benefits from the farce, change all their ways of life, work now, and Virginia finds new love in Pablo (Ruben Rojo).
The film has a very humorous beginning, with the bunch of drunks lying on top of each other as a single mass, without distinguishing the legs of anyone, and then sliding one of the Buñuelianos fetishes: the feet, because the first thing we see of the protagonist, and of all the prisoners of the first sequence, is his feet, a very eloquent and funny presentation of the film. Buñuel continues, with equal efficiency as hilarity, continues diagraming the protagonist, still drunk, at home, attending to all his relatives, even his butler lives of the money that wastes the boss. And Ramiro gets satisfied all of them by sending one by one to his office for a check to pay their frivolities, without even losing his drunkenness, and is from that drunkenness where much of the hilarity of those first sequences is born. The sequence of Ramiro's drunkenness on Virginia's engagement night was vital for Buñuel, finishing drawing that character, and although the actor's interpretation of the script was sublimated, it is the definitive sequence of the pathetic ruin in which was found the character, is the turning-point situation. Once again, the fetish of the feet, Ramiro's shoe, will open up, an image that opens a new narrative moment of the film, because if before it presented the drunkard in jail, now it portrays him with changed status, he has gone from being a rich and carefree drunk, to be a supposed ruined, without money and in misery; the pierced shoe is a silent image representative of this. Then we appreciate another Buñuelian trait, and it is his well-known aversion to kisses, being this markedly striking when Virginia frustrates attempts to kiss from her initial fiance; not even a couple about-to-get-married, on the night of their engagement party, is enough for Buñuel to show a kiss on camera. Then Virginia again represses the kiss, now with Pablo, but Buñuel uses an ingenious and funny contraption, because the kiss happens in offscreen space, out of frame, we do not see it, we hear it by the loudspeaker he left on his car; it is repeated again at the end, and shows that detail so typical of filmmaker. Another Buñuelian element par excellence, sex, the sexual impulse, is now printed in a very suggestive way, with Virginia and Pablo talking, he declaring his love to her, while they suck their ice cream, feeling almost an echo of the suggestive sequence of Jorge Negrete and Libertad Lamarque in Gran Casino, moving a stick in the oil mud. Also Virginia, when Pablo finally declared, responds "already must have cooled", playing the double meaning of the engine, and of the erotic impetus of Pablo, repressed, as so often in the films of Buñuel; this acquires other nuances with the moments of kisses that are heard in loudspeaker, a very curious resource in the cinema of Buñuel.
Probably the reason for the disparate result of this film with respect to Gran Casino rests on several factors, for instance there is no more the sabotage of the industry to Jorge Negrete, nor the meddling of Libertad Lamarque looking for hew a name in the Mexican cinematographic industry with this film; the actors were no longer negative influence, diametrically opposed situation with Soler and his formidable contribution, generating firm mutual respect with Buñuel, something proven in the future collaborations between both, in addition to which Buñuel repeatedly in the future professed praise to the Mexican acting referent. In addition to this, Buñuel was already more knowledgeable, knowing the Mexican industry, having lost some of the pressure of his first Mexican film, there is a greater freshness and freedom in the filmmaker that is translated to the film. Fernando Soler has therefore had an undeniable weight in the film, not only being the main actor and producer (he even initially was going to be the director, a possibility that Soler dismissed as he considered it too exhausting, suggested a "practical" filmmaker, and the choice fell on Buñuel), because the technical script of the film is in Spain, in which numerous handwritten annotations that came from the actor can be appreciated; but that ended up being positive, because those welcomed intrusions freed the Aragonese director enough, allowing him to focus his attention on other filmic needs. This situation is unprecedented and unheard of in a Buñuelian film, the filmmaker working in such a changing way, allowing so many changes on the march, during the filming, because these entries are numerous, many of them from the director's own hand. These annotations modified both dialogues and some shots, the final assembly differed from what was initially planned in many sequences, although the modifications were not substantial, and in this regard the book of the student of Buñuel's work, Professor Amparo Martínez Herranz, throws vital lights. Extremely comical details will be distributed during the film, many of them product, with a high probability, of those spontaneous modifications during the shooting. It is an alimentary film, a work in which Buñuel probably felt that he should not seek greater pleasures or gratifications at the level of artistic achievement, it was an exercise to recover the credit, to try again to gain a place in the Mexican scene, since he even considered leaving Aztec lands. And the film fulfills its mission, and without marveling, again elevates Buñuel as an efficient, economic filmmaker, shows new virtues of the filmmaker, which in turn serves to pave the way to his genuine artistic interest, Los Olvidados. The versatility of Buñuel is undoubtedly shaped, after the surrealist beginnings, after Las Hurdes, after the Hollywood dubbing, now the director "normalizes", proves that he is able to make more conventional cinema, commercial cinema, as he considered, works in a location as unthinking as Mexico, and not only works there, but generates masterpieces. Buñuel had succeeded in proving that he was a total master of cinema.
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