Death in the Garden (1956) - Luis Buñuel

Buñuel would continue his development as a filmmaker, and being the particular year of the release of this film, 1956, a cyclical year in his career, a great change was beginning to get shaped in the director, a change that had begun with Thus is the aurora, shortly before released. Continuing with his personal tradition, the Spanish genius adapted a literary work to the cinema, by José-André Lacour, adapted to the script by his famous collaborator, Luis Alcoriza, and with his own participation also in the process, a remarkable tandem very often repeated, usually with success. In the film Buñuel is merging some of his old topics and obsessions, with some new artistic and thematic affiliations, undoubtedly is maturing to reach his fullness in European lands, in later films. The story portrayed shows a group of individuals, living in an undetermined place, where diamonds abound, where an adventurer arrives, finding an environment of rebellion among the diamond workers and military who evict them; in the violent collision between the groups, the adventurer, a priest, an old man and his daughter, as well as a prostitute, will undertake desperate flight through the jungle. Buñuel follows the line of films like Robinson Crusoe (1954), but above of all the aforementioned film, he is already exploring new ways, and sees that the path of European film coproductions is already an inevitable and indefectible way.

                   

In an undetermined country, area of diamonds lands, a group of villagers, diamond-diggers, are informed that they will be evicted by military forces, try to protest, but they are repressed. In there, lives Castin (Charles Vanel), with his deaf-mute daughter Maria (Michèle Girardon), then arrives the stranger Shark (Georges Marchal); in the midst of the turbulent environment, Father Lizardi (Michel Piccoli) tries to persuade everyone not to rebel. Shark meets Djin (Simone Signoret), attractive prostitute who gives him to the military, who accuse him of a robbery. But Shark manages to escape the dungeon, the military kill many of the villagers, Castin is accused of exhorting the people to revolt, he hides in Djin's house and proposes marriage, and she accepts, with the old man's money in mind. They embark on the run, Shark, Djin, Lizardi, Castin and his daughter, also aided by Chenko (Tito Junco). The merciless jungle punishes them, while the soldiers are always following their trail, Djin, and then Castin will get losing strength, since scarces food and rains copiously. Shark then finds food and even jewelry, it seems that salvation has come, they must build a raft and cross a lake. But Castin suddenly falls prey to dementia as they plot to flee, and while Shark and the prostitute fall in love, while others fight for the many jewels found, he takes a rifle and kills Djin and Lizardi. Shark afterwards wipes him out and finally leaves with Maria.

In this film, Buñuel articulates the narrative structure in well differentiated parts, the first, with the supposedly civilized world, but in which at the same time violence and bullets reign; the second in which the jungle will take care of arising the most desperate side of the unfortunate, until they lose their calm, sanity, and eventually even life; and then lucidly returns, but at the same time, and hand in hand with that lucidity in some cases, their ambitions and malice, find salvage, food, and even superfluous well-being, jewels. But with the jewels it returns to them much of the evil in their humanity, an antagonism that seems to be an echo of the caressed in Robinson Crusoe, the return to the most basic of man, the questioning of the most elementary principles of civilization (although it does not get to the extreme of the solitude and total isolation of the aristocratic English adventurer, whose journey to the interior was much deeper). In one of the films where the filmmaker most vigorously portrays one of his affiliations, the political interest and to some extent with revolutionary guidelines, from the beginning of the film, promptly and immediately portrays a crude confrontation, a class confrontation that will become violent. The exploiters, in the form of the oppressive government, the military, against the exploited, the humble and hardworking diamond workers, who see their way of life, their modus vivendi and only source of income, abruptly cut off. Thus, one of the first things we see is violence, the violent shock of the beginning, the military repressing the workers, a clear variety of the traditional class clash, and the figure that immediately shows, after that confrontation, is allegorically a board of Chess. In the aspect of staging, some frames, some shots, although not in abundance, leave evidence of maturity, of the technical mastery that has been acquired by the director, already hardened, and who was already entering to full-color films; but, in the general analysis, this is a film in which surrealism shines by its absence (the only moment this is broken, is when a photo appears, car sounds flow, cars and lights, improbable picture that fades as the focus of the photo moves away), a linear, flat film, in which Buñuel rather explores other topics that draw his attention powerfully. The director recovers in that sense one of the themes that would permeate his guidelines in more than one film those years, the unbelievable created hell that human beings face, in space and situations that become minimal. Now, as in Robinson, there is a slow and gradual ruin and degradation, faced with an extreme situation, a voracious jungle that opens its threatening jaws, the subjects are prey to despair, old Castin being the most useless, the most defenseless.

In future there would be no going back, the new topic certainly fascinated Buñuel, probably started with the aforementioned Robinson, continued with That is the Dawn, and then would take this to its pinnacle, and in different variations, with The Exterminating Angel (1962). Being Buñuel a filmmaker with the temperament and obsessions he has, the entomologist is again notticed, that finds solace in what he shapes, with humans confronting unbelievable circumstances, bordering on the absurd and unreal, with the director leaning like an entomologist, curious and scientific, analyzing his test subjects, as if it was an experiment (being fair, for the filmmaker certainly it was). There was also another great change, Buñuel used after a long time, from his exile in Aztec lands, European actors, French actors after decades of separation, and although the filmmaker talks about the tortuous work with Simone Signoret and her diva poses, he tightened ties with Michel Piccoli, to whom great friendship would unite him. Although the film differs from other works more a la Buñuel, there are noticed anyway his obsession topics, like the never missing death, sempiternal threat in the form of the merciless jungle, although it is finally human dementia that ends with half of the group, it is Castin who is deranged and liquidates everybody; there is the relative newness now, the new obsession, a group of individuals, who over one or another circumstance, more or less realistic, with greater or lesser verisimilitude, are immersed in dementia situations, that will take their humanity to the limit, breaking every convention of life in a civilized world. The circumstances, from one case to another, from one film to another, will vary, and Buñuel now has the tact of separating from having to frame his story in a certain geographical space, he simply slides us that it is a South American country, which shares borders with Brazil. An always inescapable Buñuelian matter, religion of course, is not absent, another of the capital subjects in the filmography of the genius of Talanda, begins to prefigure variations that in later films would deal with much greater detail and freedom. This is based on Father Lizardi, an ambiguous figure, diametrically opposed to priests previously seen in Buñuel, as the father of He (1953), and to a certain extent hinted at the irreverent priest of The River and Death (1954), both so conventional -to put it in a way-, compared to what we could now call an indefinite priest, ambiguous in his attitude, always taking responsibility for others ("I answer for him", or "I take responsibility", we will hear him say), that unconsciously forms part of the oppressive side, which is overcome by circumstances, is already announcing what will be the father in Nazarín (1959).

Father Lizardi, from his first appearance, from his first words, is clearly outlining what character he is about, he wants to quell the revolt, "who kills iron, he dies iron," he says quietly but determinedly. The priest is a key character, who transits in a certain way, from one side to another, in that sense his evolution makes him one of the most interesting characters: although at the beginning he urged Castin to surrender and end with the killings and violence, afterwards collaborates to hide him, does not betray him, helps to hide him from the militia. He renounces his faith, symbolically pulls out the leaves of the bible to light the fire, has sacrificed his faith for the material, for survival, the flesh has prevailed over faith, is certainly the most attractive character, in which Buñuel seems to have poured the most of his curiosity and interest. Deliriously tells an anecdote about hard-boiled eggs, without anyone paying the least attention, an unrelated anecdote with what is lived, and, in my opinion, very probably an anecdote intimately linked to Buñuel himself; in the end significantly tells Shark that his opinion about him has changed. Shark is a kind of heretic, does not believe in God, does not kneel before the image of Christ in a chapel, but until, by force, with a rifle blow on his legs, they make him. And it is complemented at the end, when the boat arrives, saying "it's funny, 60 men had to die for God to save us" (Castin also adds something to this, when he is already a prey of the dementia, he is about to kill everyone, saying "the righteousness of God shall speak"). As always, in his characters, the filmmaker overturns human traits, the innocence of the mute girl, the restrained behavior of the prostitute, the naive old man, and that indecipherable priest, all make up what could be considered the totality of human nuances to the eyes of Buñuel. In the violent ending, after all the lived -and survived- Djin and Lizardi are killed by Castin, the strongest and weakest finally are the survivors, Shark and Maria, her innocence is what saves her, and in regard to that duality of the survivors, Buñuel affirms not knowing why that pair was the one that resisted in the end, "the nature does not act according to the human laws: it is blind", he says to us. The film unfolded at a momentous time in Buñuel, who was already well established in Mexico, who had achieved fame, notoriety and recognition, both public and critical, but to whom the doors of the Mexican film scene began to close. The great change was already beginning, the co-productions with Europe were a more than affordable way, it was becoming the only way forward, and the European producers began to look with longing on the young and promising Spanish filmmaker, who, more than a promise, was then already a reality, sensing that his great explosion was coming soon; it was the right time, the turning point in his career had come. Atypical and conjunctural, very Buñuel but at the same time different from his most traditional exercises, worthy and indispensable for the scholars of his work, a feature not of his better known, and recognized, but necessary for the global understanding of his oeuvre.