Fever Rises in El Pao / Republic of Sin (1959) - Luis Buñuel

Buñuel continues with his cinematographic work, the time for leaving Mexican lands was approaching more and more, and in this opportunity generates a work of mixed origins and characteristics, a European and American coproduction. As the filmmaker often did, it is based on a literary work to convey a story, this time it was Henri Castillou the author, in a story that the filmmaker accepts not having done with the greatest enthusiasm, but of course without ever losing the proper professionalism in his office. The adapted novel portrays a story strongly tinged with politics, in a fictitious land of Caribbean areas, an island that serves as a penitentiary, where a despotic political leader has the inhabitants so jaded, that a subaltern of his eliminates him, and who takes the witness in the position, corrupt and ambitious, must face an idealistic individual who will fall in love with the woman of the deceased leader; this subject must face a system and circumstances that will end up breaking his strength, and put aside his happiness. A work that, as traditionally called the Mexican films of the author, is alimentary, and rarely it is noticed so much in a Buñuel film, but as has been said in previous articles, it is as if the filmmaker sensed that repatriation was approaching, he already collaborates with the Europeans.

                   

After a brief visual prologue of a town, a voice places us in an indeterminate place, a prison island, Ojeda, with its capital El Pao. There lives the beautiful Inés Rojas (María Félix), wife of the governor, Mariano Vargas (M.A. Soler), whose servant, Ramón Vázquez (Gérard Philipe), admires and loves her in silence. Vargas knows about her adulteries, but soon in a public act, Vargas is eliminated, there is a great stir. The substitute of the governor is Alejandro Gual (Jean Servais), begins to make way in his political power, despotically exploits inmates, while Vázquez and Inés are consuming and reinforcing their love. Gual meets with Ines, confesses secret love, she rejects him, and he reveals that he knows about their affairs. They find the assassin of Vargas, and Gual, jealous, threatens Inés with liquidating Vázquez if she does not agrees to an idyll. The love affair doesn't concrete, they want to get rid of Gual, they allow a riot, in which the island is besieged; Inés seduces Gual, who is removed from power. Vázquez's conscience weighs him for what it cost to overthrow Gual, the new authorities of Ojeda ask him to convince Inés to declare herself a collaborator of the ending regime; he refuses. Inés does not want that either, she decides to flee to Mexico, she tries, but the island is very controlled, she is killed when she tries to escape. Vázquez finally remains alone, hesitant.










Once again, opens his film Buñuel with an audiovisual introduction to the land where everything will be represented, a nearby painting that is made with soft travellings that move with moderation around the fictional Ojeda, and its capital El Pao, overflowing with prisoners, replacing the usual Folklore of other filmic beginnings by the Spanish. The voice narrator makes clear to us immediately the airtightness of the site, there is no easy access, if someone enters that penitentiary it can be taken for granted that that person will not leave alive, the cemetery is shown immediately, because that is the only way out of that site, and as already in previous opportunities the filmmaker did, situates his story in a place and time not determined, skillfully empowering that history can be framed, relatively speaking, in any place and time, it is about the situation, what is portrayed, where the force of everything portrayed rests. The film will be quite linear, flat film, that linearity is not broken, the absence of surrealism is something that more than one palate lover of Buñuelian cinema will confuse. Effectively, this one is among the films that less contain the filmmaker's imprint, so that if someone saw the film without knowing which director it is, he or she would hardly identify the film as the work of its author, he will soon even show one of his always avoided images, a kiss, something that he will must repeatedly do; certainly an atypical work in the director. Even the behavior of the camera has to be measured, coupled, adapting to the type of visual narration that we witness, everything is harmonized with that flat and linear film, without breaking schemes. The unusual musical accompaniment is something that also contributes to the bizarre tonality in general that the film has. The filmmaker tells us in his memoirs that, nevertheless, he tried to insuflate life into the scenes that he considered needed to be enhanced, a difficult task. In this way, after a third of the film has already passed, after thirty minutes, there are very few identifiable cornerstones of Talanda's genius, one of the director's less identifiable films is seen, less bearers of his more traditional artistic edges.

Arrived at the knot, at the equator of the film, we continue with that dynamic, the linear picture that continues to rest on the words, the dialogues, until becoming somewhat tedious, a lack of actions, a lack of passions that makes sterile their characters, just in the middle of the film is weaving some tension, some intrigue. In that sense, it is one of the most testimonial films by Buñuel, rarely, or perhaps never, were so absent his powerful figures, the powerful symbolisms, few times the dialogues, the words, were so preponderant, so central in the film, it feels as if the talent of the director was diluted under so many constraints. Even words in the filmic epilogue were used to externalize the final drama of Vázquez. What before did without words Buñuel, here has to translate it into a voice-over monologue, and tells us about the final internal break of Vázquez. It is a film whose multiple sources of production finally damaged it, we get to perceive the multiplicity of the origins of the film, in which we have a gibberish of up to 6 writers collaborating, with sequences that apparently were shot some in France, others in Mexico; all that multicolored collection of origins makes the film is noticed therefore uneven, very little akin to the style of the Iberian director, and helps to understand the little enthusiasm with which the director refers to this work. Indeed, to a certain extent, Buñuel's disinterest -by him himself recognized by the way- is evident in the production of the film, it is noted that it is a job, as the films members of this stage of the director are called, alimentary films, made in order to survive, because in that moment of his life, Buñuel suffered some economic hardships, "at that time I took everything they offered", he says. It is understood that the director has so little to say about this work, but the filmmaker, of course, never stopped working with professionalism, the office comes first, and he struggled to give life to a film from different angles sterile. Their characters are felt unexplored, not unraveled, does not delve into them, to understand them better, their procedures do not feel justified in their pasts, actions or passions, something he did know to do in so many other previous films of his; the shallow treatment, it is known, was not Buñuel's entire responsibility, with the avatars of the production, but it is definitely detrimental to the final shape of the film.












However, not all the spirit of Buñuel could be absent, and apart of the strong political affiliation, we have the ever present erotic element in the film, albeit in dribs and drabs, present in the figure of Agnes, Agnes and her naked and contoured back, that the filmmaker shows us in close shots, his bare legs, in brief moments of warm eroticism that at times remind us who is behind the cameras. In spite of everything, some sequences have a remarkable beauty and visual power, they are exceptions, like the sequence in which Ines seduces Gual, all the visual power of Buñuel is expressed in that darkness, in that composition so refined of its frames, strong chiaroscuros that are spread in the harmonious distribution of his frames. It is almost as if the filmmaker, being handcuffed in other ways, had taken refuge in the elaboration of his frames, in a theatrical halo that seems to warmly structure some sequences, it is probably the efforts to which Buñuel referred to trying to get float the picture. Be that as it may, Buñuel's protagonist is now an idealist, from the beginning Ines defines him that way, he does not get corrupted, and that incorruptibility will be his final sentence. He prefers his duty, the homeland to his happiness, he is the typical Buñuelian ambivalent character, who is torn between indecision, is an element of the regime that disapproves, but incapable of harming his comrades, or, once the damage is done, incapable of get rid of the guilt; the film is therefore a constant conflict between both parties of Vázquez. It is like a sort of continuation of Nazarin and his dilemma, his firm convictions, his principles seem unbreakable, but he doubts, he is not happy about his success in getting rid of Gual, he has charge of conscience for the lives sacrificed for his purposes. In the ending sequence, we have his final negative to obey an order from his superior, a similar epiphany takes place to that of Nazarin, but to a lesser extent, he has also broken with his surroundings. A film in which death and freedom go together, love and politics in the same way, violence, death, injustice, oppression, a severe political despotism, intrigues, political tricks, the most political film of Spanish without doubt, perhaps not without reason is it said that it is one of the less Buñuel films there are; but completes, among That is the Dawn (1956) and Death in the Garden (1956), what some call his "political" or "revolutionary" triptych, in which he confronts the oppressors, in this case Gual, an interesting character smoothly sublimated with his care for birds. There is also Ines, with her strange complacency with which she gives herself to Gual, leaves a little to think about, but this makes sense when it is known that everything is a ruse with Vázquez, she belongs to the system, she is the love, the redemption for Vazquez, but not even for her will be able to break his principles, sterile principles that in the end, when he breaks that sheet of orders, reach a disjunctive of powerful climax, something has changed in him forever, as in the priest Nazario. Buñuel affirms that he wanted in the end to approach the outcome of the opera Tosca, with tragic endings for everyone, but, once again, this is drowned in the resulting hybrid of the film. A movie quite atypical in the filmmaker, from which does not keep the best memories, an alimentary film in almost all its aspects, but always necessary for the studious of the work of the Spanish genius.