After having conducted the blackest comedy
The criminal life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955), the Iberian filmmaker Buñuel would take a new direction in his filmography, a break point would be given, because after a prolonged absence of relations, after almost twenty years of silence, Buñuel once again linked with European producers to concrete his films. And as it was a constant in almost all of his filmography, the filmmaker will make an adaptation of a literary work, a novel by Emmanuel Roblès in which more than one of the eternal Buñuelian topics we will observe, but very attractively disseminated and attenuated in what would be a film to retake contacts between Europe and the exiled Buñuel, the prodigal son who was already near to culminate his Mexican stage, where imperishable seal also knew to leave. It is the tragic story of a doctor in rural areas, whose wife longs to get out of that boring place and head for Nice; but the doctor, unable to abandon his patients, makes her go alone. Labor problems arise for the doctor, who, while getting to meet and fall in love with a beautiful widow, must choose between satisfying the demands of his wife and father-in-law, or remaining and supporting the cause and problems of local workers, particularly one, a friend of his. An academic film of Buñuel, compared to other exercises, in which he knows how to capture many of his figures and obsessions that never left his cinema, is the beginning of the return to Europe.
In French streets, we see Angela (Nelly Borgeaud), wife of Doctor Valerio (Georges Marchal), in whose hospital there are workers injured by negligence of the employer, Gorzone (Jean-Jacques Delbo). Angela tells Valerio that she is tired of that place, that she longs to go with him to Nice, that they would have a better life, and better patients for him. But Valerio can not abandon his humble patients, let alone his wife on a luxurious cruise; back to work, sees Sandro Galli (Giani Esposito), whose wife, Magda (Brigitte Elloy), is seriously ill, and therefore he neglects the crops that Gorzone pays him to care. In another moment, Valerio attends to a girl who was about to be raped, is present the Commissioner Fasaro (Julien Bertheau), and he meets there the beautiful widow Clara (Lucia Bosé). Clara must leave, but instead she starts a clandestine affair with the Doctor. Gorzone suddenly fires Sandro for being unproductive, demanding him to move from the house that includes his former job, generating drama over the state of his wife. In spite of intervening Valerio, Sandro has to leave, and in the trip, Magda dies, and an enraged Sandro liquidates Gorzone shooting him. Valerio hides Sandro in his house, the authorities look for him, with Fasaro at the head; Angela returns, and, upon discovering what Valerio is doing, leaves him; tragic end will have Sandro, who kills himself, and Valerio ends up staying, then leaving with the beautiful Clara.
The first thing we can say about this film is that we are facing a real turning point for the director, in which he discovered European coproductions as something more than a mere alternative, but an imminent source of salvation for his career. This crossroads occurs in the situation of the time in the Mexican scene, where the film industry, despite the positive results both in criticism and in public observed with the evolution of Buñuel, began to close to him more stubbornly the doors. The beginning of the film appears premonitoriously sober, without excesses, with moderation, and thus, from the first images of the film we appreciate that it is a very academic work, a very methodical work, and as the minutes go on, this will end to get corroborated. The camera expresses itself mainly static but with some brief but precise movements and travellings -some moderate traveling will release the camera of a behavior in which calmness prevails, besides an equally sober photograph, to which also collaborates Robert Lefebvre, with harmonious combinations of black and white, lights and shadows, all gathered in compositions of his frames that denote the reached maturity, and a certain technical dedication in the realization. This photograph is effective to capture the dry and arid environment, such as the situations experienced by the protagonists, the exteriors where the film is shot. In fact, the feature is perceived as an assignment, as a well-executed and tenacious work, as if the filmmaker tried to look academic, applied to the eyes of a Europe that wished to repatriate the talented Spanish who was marveling the world from Mexico for already several years. But it is always emphasized that despite this, despite adhering to certain canons and conventional standards, he knew how to whisper his winks, always visible to the connoisseur of his work. Likewise, the bestiary of Buñuel, with young felines, also slides easily, and the donkeys, all with subtle naturalness, populate the first frames of the film. We also have the hen, the animal element of Buñuel par excellence, that after a period of certain absence, flows safely and vigorously in repeated passages of the film. Thus, more than once flows the big-eared donkey, like the hen, two of the best known and referential, as well as traditional elements of the buñuealian bestiary.
It will be observed a high technical mark in the film, and although to the picture some will blame its structure a little flat, without breaking the conventional structure of the story, this should be seen in any case as something coherent to the transcendental conjuncture of the moment the filmmaker was passing through. However, a lukewarm detail of surrealism could almost be noticed in the filmmaker, as perhaps the shots dedicated to the urban artist, mounted on a bicycle playing the violin between the tables of a restaurant, while the camera follows his burlesque movement. Sharper Buñuelian details will not delay in flowing either, and with vigor, as is the singular case of the picture hanging of a Christ plagued by some foci and cables, where bizarrely makes a warm allusion to religion, but above all to his surrealist formation, which never ceases to manifest itself in Mexican production, with more or less intensity and frequency depending on the film and circumstances, but never leaving the filmmaker's creative elan. Another personal detail is the text of Claudel, one of the director's favorite poets, a text on which the Spaniard places handcuffs, in a subtle but decided allusion to a writer that he has always admired. Another important moment is when Valerio meets Clara in her house, and clandestine lovers have a moment of intimacy, with the turtle that serves as an extension image for the loving moment, a personal image of love on the part of the filmmaker, because we know how reluctant the filmmaker was to cast kisses directly on the screen. Instead, we have the chelonian, faced up and turning on his feet, an image without words, as the best filmmakers work, to prolong the situation of secret love and passion that we are witnessing. The hens and the kisses, by the way, parade successively with surprising fluidity. The distance and the beach waves are also another of the figures where it extends, where it prolongs a feeling or circumstance portrayed, in this case the love, or the erotic amorous sequence that portrays, another amorous encounter between Valerio and Clara, where again the language of the director manifests itself. We find, therefore, a warm presence of the representative topics of the director, although this is not considered among the highest Bueñuelian peaks, it is a film that is well established between two of the most defined and important moments for this brilliant filmmaker.
Two-edged moment or work must have been this for Buñuel, because although on the one hand meant his return to work with European producers, even if it was half, still the director did not have the complete freedom to direct, to his total performance, the technical formality and to a certain extent aesthetic and thematic is a general rule to which he still has to stick, the genius still had to accept certain adaptations in his style. We
listen to a Buñuelian film in a foreign language, no longer in Spanish from the Mother Country, nor the one from Mexico, we hear it now in French, it is not new if we remember his delusional silent exercises -or semi silent- of surrealistic initials, but this is actually the first time we heard a Buñuelian movie in French. After almost four lustrums, there is a return, although partial, in the form of the co-production with France, a parenthesis before finally ending his phase in Aztec lands and returning to the European arena, where some of his greatest summits would reach. It is one of the films in which his sociological and political affiliation is most evident, the idea of revolution is more strongly portrayed, the class collision is no longer a mean but an end, his central character incarnates everything, grows his commitment to the incidental movement of the workers, grows his motivations, subscribes to thought and activities of workers, facing the oppressive employers, putting this before a wife whom did not love the way he loved the widow. The director portrays adultery, morality is once more on the sidelines, because Buñuel does not judge or condemn in his films, he does not judge his imperfect protagonists but he shows us his dramas, portrays his complex heroes, and Valerio is the center of film, evolves, existentially and socially as well, and significantly in a moment he is asked why he does all this, a question to which only he answers with silence, he discovers that the cause of the workers cares him more even than his own welfare, which is in theory, with his wife. He is the character on which rests the interest, he is the nucleus, with which the public must identify itself, his revolutionary commitment grows without even himself notticing it, it is his moral and social dilemma in which rests the drama of the film. His final gesture to reject Fasaro's hand, a valuable ally in that context from a Machiavellian point of view, finally shows us that he rejects everything the commissar represents, the oppressor, the abuser, the exploiter, and all those involved, direct or indirect, because the policeman only fulfilled his duty. From this feature on, Buñuel would know actors who would be great friends in some cases, and who will be his future frequent support actors, as is the case of the detective Fasaro, Julien Bertheau, to whom more than once we would later appreciate in some of the French summit works of the end of the career of the filmmaker. A film that in fact will not be counted among the most extraordinaries that this great director ever knew to produce, but for the reasons explained above is a film worthy of much attention, which is worth doubly by the circumstantial nature of the moment in the life of the artist, a film necessary for an integral knowledge of his oeuvre.
In French streets, we see Angela (Nelly Borgeaud), wife of Doctor Valerio (Georges Marchal), in whose hospital there are workers injured by negligence of the employer, Gorzone (Jean-Jacques Delbo). Angela tells Valerio that she is tired of that place, that she longs to go with him to Nice, that they would have a better life, and better patients for him. But Valerio can not abandon his humble patients, let alone his wife on a luxurious cruise; back to work, sees Sandro Galli (Giani Esposito), whose wife, Magda (Brigitte Elloy), is seriously ill, and therefore he neglects the crops that Gorzone pays him to care. In another moment, Valerio attends to a girl who was about to be raped, is present the Commissioner Fasaro (Julien Bertheau), and he meets there the beautiful widow Clara (Lucia Bosé). Clara must leave, but instead she starts a clandestine affair with the Doctor. Gorzone suddenly fires Sandro for being unproductive, demanding him to move from the house that includes his former job, generating drama over the state of his wife. In spite of intervening Valerio, Sandro has to leave, and in the trip, Magda dies, and an enraged Sandro liquidates Gorzone shooting him. Valerio hides Sandro in his house, the authorities look for him, with Fasaro at the head; Angela returns, and, upon discovering what Valerio is doing, leaves him; tragic end will have Sandro, who kills himself, and Valerio ends up staying, then leaving with the beautiful Clara.
The first thing we can say about this film is that we are facing a real turning point for the director, in which he discovered European coproductions as something more than a mere alternative, but an imminent source of salvation for his career. This crossroads occurs in the situation of the time in the Mexican scene, where the film industry, despite the positive results both in criticism and in public observed with the evolution of Buñuel, began to close to him more stubbornly the doors. The beginning of the film appears premonitoriously sober, without excesses, with moderation, and thus, from the first images of the film we appreciate that it is a very academic work, a very methodical work, and as the minutes go on, this will end to get corroborated. The camera expresses itself mainly static but with some brief but precise movements and travellings -some moderate traveling will release the camera of a behavior in which calmness prevails, besides an equally sober photograph, to which also collaborates Robert Lefebvre, with harmonious combinations of black and white, lights and shadows, all gathered in compositions of his frames that denote the reached maturity, and a certain technical dedication in the realization. This photograph is effective to capture the dry and arid environment, such as the situations experienced by the protagonists, the exteriors where the film is shot. In fact, the feature is perceived as an assignment, as a well-executed and tenacious work, as if the filmmaker tried to look academic, applied to the eyes of a Europe that wished to repatriate the talented Spanish who was marveling the world from Mexico for already several years. But it is always emphasized that despite this, despite adhering to certain canons and conventional standards, he knew how to whisper his winks, always visible to the connoisseur of his work. Likewise, the bestiary of Buñuel, with young felines, also slides easily, and the donkeys, all with subtle naturalness, populate the first frames of the film. We also have the hen, the animal element of Buñuel par excellence, that after a period of certain absence, flows safely and vigorously in repeated passages of the film. Thus, more than once flows the big-eared donkey, like the hen, two of the best known and referential, as well as traditional elements of the buñuealian bestiary.
It will be observed a high technical mark in the film, and although to the picture some will blame its structure a little flat, without breaking the conventional structure of the story, this should be seen in any case as something coherent to the transcendental conjuncture of the moment the filmmaker was passing through. However, a lukewarm detail of surrealism could almost be noticed in the filmmaker, as perhaps the shots dedicated to the urban artist, mounted on a bicycle playing the violin between the tables of a restaurant, while the camera follows his burlesque movement. Sharper Buñuelian details will not delay in flowing either, and with vigor, as is the singular case of the picture hanging of a Christ plagued by some foci and cables, where bizarrely makes a warm allusion to religion, but above all to his surrealist formation, which never ceases to manifest itself in Mexican production, with more or less intensity and frequency depending on the film and circumstances, but never leaving the filmmaker's creative elan. Another personal detail is the text of Claudel, one of the director's favorite poets, a text on which the Spaniard places handcuffs, in a subtle but decided allusion to a writer that he has always admired. Another important moment is when Valerio meets Clara in her house, and clandestine lovers have a moment of intimacy, with the turtle that serves as an extension image for the loving moment, a personal image of love on the part of the filmmaker, because we know how reluctant the filmmaker was to cast kisses directly on the screen. Instead, we have the chelonian, faced up and turning on his feet, an image without words, as the best filmmakers work, to prolong the situation of secret love and passion that we are witnessing. The hens and the kisses, by the way, parade successively with surprising fluidity. The distance and the beach waves are also another of the figures where it extends, where it prolongs a feeling or circumstance portrayed, in this case the love, or the erotic amorous sequence that portrays, another amorous encounter between Valerio and Clara, where again the language of the director manifests itself. We find, therefore, a warm presence of the representative topics of the director, although this is not considered among the highest Bueñuelian peaks, it is a film that is well established between two of the most defined and important moments for this brilliant filmmaker.
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