Illusion Travels by Streetcar (1954) - Luis Buñuel

Film with which the great Aragonese Luis Buñuel continues to configure his particular sketch of the cinematography, and of the Mexican society completely, in which some relatively fresh news as far as topics are appreciated, and others will get cementing more, reinforcing the style that the director developed in Aztec lands. It is going to be based on this opportunity the great Buñuel in a literary work, novel authored by Mauricio de la Serna, in turn adapted by José Revueltas, and in whose adaptation also participated Luis Alcoriza, usual and memorable collaborator of the filmmaker, in which again will be reflected much of Mexico, its customs, its people, and events that never ceased to move the exiled Buñuel. The Aragonese genius portrays the history of two workers, two individuals who have worked all their lives driving trams, and when progress begins, and their livelihood will be replaced, they despair; during a drunkenness, hijack the vehicle, and undertake an unthinking and unlikely journey through the streets of the Mexican city, where various situations and characters will be parading. The film, very well accomplished, but without being among the best Mexican works of the filmmaker -to cite an example, He- continues with the particular Buñuelian tradition of showing the director's particular focus on the land that housed him, and In one way or another, did not cease to impact him.

                      

It starts all in Mexico, in a city that has a tram station, there are workers' labouring, among them Juan Godínez 'Caireles' (Carlos Navarro), and Tobías Hernández' Tarrajas' (Fernando Soto), who are informed that their tram will be dismantled, they lose their job. The friends are going to drown their sorrows in alcohol, then go to the local festival, where is Lupita (Lilia Prado), sister of the 'Tarrajas', and where the fun continues. Then, in the middle of their drunkenness, they decide to take the tram from the station, to give it a last trip, and without looking for it, they have to transport, in the middle of the night, all the attendants the party, besides many other passengers. It is thus that they transport some slaughterers, old gossips women, religious females, a drunken aristocrat, and even a whole room of school children, who climb the vehicle by hilarious error. The nonsenses do not cease, friends have to avoid a tram inspector, and then appears Papá Pinillos (Agustín Isunza), a former employee, also dismissed from the tram station, who pretends to prove that he still is valuable for the company, and will disclose them. While the people suffer from inflation, and while 'Caireles' is insistently courting Lupita, Papá Pinillos reappears, insists on betraying them, and almost dies of a heart attack. In an unthinking way, finally the tram is taken back to the station, and no one believes Pinillos about the kidnapping, everything is still normal.

In a film’s beginning fully identifiable with Buñuel's, a documentary-style beginning, a narrator off voice presents the geographic space where everything happens, Mexico City, "big city like so many of the world, is theater of the most varied and bewildering events, which are but pulsations of his daily life... ", says the introductory voice; is therefore a fully documental beginning, a film starting very of the style of the Spanish, and that closely resembles Los Olvidados. And as well that serves as a proem sequence, while the rich tradition of documentary flows, praises simplicity, because in that simplicity and everyday simplicity, can be hiding something wonderful, unforgettable, perhaps only for the protagonists, or perhaps for someone else. He also immediately connects the filmmaker with the theme of working people, the working masses who wander and diagram the stories, the bowels of Mexico City, those who climb on that tram every day, is a good connection bridge from a theme to another, a quite versatile beginning of Buñuel, whose efficiency and narrative economy was already well demonstrated. Great prolegomenon to continue the Spanish with his personal outline of Mexico, the diagram of the land and its people, its customs, as when we see the regional celebration of the piñata -where, by the way, the director slides a great traveling, of the few in the film-, popular festivals, because the film is based on a successful story, popular novel by the way. The usual things, everyday life merges with the strange, with the extraordinary, something as daily as discussions in public transport, affronts, insults, fights for higher prices of products, something very daily-life in the middle class or working people, fuse with death (the slaughterers and Papa Pinillos, although this one certainly does not die), elements not so normal. In this tale of agile rhythm, the marvelous reality emerges from the most unexpected situation, individuals change the streetcar sign, mistakenly climbing, and implausibly, a complete classroom of student children; the before empty and silent space, the micro universe, is now extremely crowded, crowded with noisy infants, a sample of the intense mood of Buñuel, delirious humor, almost absurd, but at the same time feasible. Buñuel's sharp edged humor is not absent in any way, and we will also see the American woman go up on the streetcar, la gringa as they call it, who, when going up and getting said that she will not be charged for the trip, suspects that there is communism behind that strange event; a mordant, unexpected and therefore effective humor.

Then of course comes the exquisite sequence of the pastourelle, where finally a vigorous and unusual surrealism is materialized, accentuating a dark onirism, which allows, more extraordinary and palpably than ever, that from the ordinary, the everyday, the real, is extracted very fluidly something extraordinary, something wonderful. Surrealism does not flow, it does not run as resolutely as in other occasions through the obvious resource of a dream, where all the onirism flows with free letter; now, although to a lesser extent, we find it timidly dissipated, finding of course its maximum expression in the said pastourelle. Then, many of the filmmaker's obsession themes flow together, religion, embodied in one of the most memorable, unbridled and delirious ways in the filmmaker, with the carnal Lilia Prado showing his abundant and turgid flesh, and that fun Lucifer, the fallen angel, finished everything with the mordacious phrase "this happens to put as God to anyone". Also, the strength in the script returns to be one of the pillars of the film, with mordacious and eloquent phrases, among which, just to mention a pair, we find "would kill a mule to pinch", or also "everything in excess is bad, even in efficiency "; again, as in many of the Mexican films of Buñuel, dialogues, ingenious and fresh, plagued with casual and corrosive irony, exhale a fluid eloquence that reflects the feeling of those times, are a constant watchword in this stage of the production of Buñuel, and this film will not be the exception, with its great colloquialism. The dialogues between Caireles and Tarrajas constitute the most solid base of this colloquial wealth, the most ingenious and endearing, with its occurrences, drunkenness, jokes, cries, moans and joys, are the heart of the social mass represented, are the nucleus of these humans, with their illusion, their illusion traveling in a tram. We find particularly similarities with Ascent to the sky (1953), and as Buñuel asserted with respect to this picture, in Mexico it was not surprising that a person came up a bus with a live animal, something that printed in the mentioned film; so, if it was a person with a goat on that bus, we now see a woman with a little dog, another echo to the feature with which she is paired. And of course, similarly to Ascent to the sky, we have to the enormous Lilia Prado, no longer in a bus, but in a streetcar, the analogue of the micro universe; are therefore obvious similarities to the mentioned feature, especially the microcosm, but I consider that this is far from forming a trilogy, along with ____, with clearly defined and differentiable norms of the rest of his works, as I have read more than once.

Technically, the first part of the film has a very dark conception, and not gratuitous, although everything happens at night, and dawn; Then, in the second part of the film, already with daylight, and with powerful illumination, the unplanned journey will continue, the picturesque sketch of various representatives of Mexican society, with, although scarce, a good camera-shots work that reinforces certain scenes and their tension. With regard to the topics discussed, we have an interesting sample of Buñuel's political guidelines, starting with the topic of the workers, of the exploited class, but also of inflation, with those drunkards that give us a sensible extract of the political affiliation, the thoughts in the feature by the filmmaker. Other complementary subjects such as impoverishment by currency devaluation, brutalization of the oppressed for the oppressor's luxury go flowing, while the camera performs medium shots during that seemingly trivial description of a drunk, and then move away significantly. Something from Alcoriza can be seen in the repeated allusions to liberal, revolutionary thinking, class clashes, basic concepts of economics, but from the perspective of the worker, the exploited, the adversary to the aristocracy. The sexual element in this case, for a Buñuelian work, is noticed strange and surprisingly parked, but never obviated, in the figure of a known for the Iberian, the carnal Lilia Prado, with those praiseworthy hips, ominous thighs, which Bunuel, in a very grateful gesture, has the right guess to very suggestively show in the aforementioned pastourelle sequence. Special mention aside for the duke of Otranto, devalued aristocrat, drunk, amusingly his participation is testimonial, mute, and the huge pig carcass flies his hat with its swaying. In this realistic and at the same time magical world, our protagonists are a kind of heroes, or antiheroes, people of town, perform any actions, but sometimes bad, like abandoning the entire classroom of students with their teacher. Some hurtful, colloquial phrases and expressions of that time flow, like the orphan's theme, Lorenzana, reflecting certain present prejudices. The vehicle, the journey, is an existential metaphor, of life itself, containing a sketch of vital topics, because we have religion, carnal desire, disappointments, death, aristocrats and workers, classes and class clashes, which forms a film somewhat different from His works conventionally considered, the outsider still shows his personal vision, his portrait of the land that welcomes him. It is a great colophon with which the Aragonese closes his film, tells us the rapporteur voice that everything is articulated around wonderful simplicity, and has been something forgettable for the rest, has been epiphanic for our protagonists though, and the final sequence is also very Buñuelian, always enemy of showing kisses on the screen, shows the only kiss in long shot, away, while the film culminates, and while the narrator off voice comes back, and we are returned to the objective perspective, the documentary. Very remarkable and appreciable feature, often cataloged as a minor picture, like so many Mexican works of the Aragonese, but always an interesting feature, container of the essence of Buñuel.