Having Buñuel approached warmly to his return to work with European producers first with
Death in the Garden (1956) and then with
That is the Dawn (1956), would approach the Spanish to this work in which he outlined one of the figures that in next films will be repeated, that of a religious man of singular adventures. The genius of Talanda in this opportunity will adapt a not very well-known work of one of his major literary influences, the great countryman of his Benito Pérez Galdós, who tells us a story that certainly is not surprising that had powerfully seduced the Iberian director, the story of a a priest of very firm faith, apparently unbreakable principles that will be put to great test when the religious applies with the greatest discipline those principles, when he puts them into practice only to obtain rejection, violence even, in those to whom he tries to profess his faith. Naturally, the original work undergoes some modifications by the director, adapting certain details to the reality and Mexican contexts. The film had two-faces results, some repudiation and accusations of anti religion, but in turn recognitions at the Festival de Cannes, in a work fully identifiable as the work of this great great filmmaker, carrier of many of his most identifying stamps, increasingly developed.
The action begins in a humble Mexican town, a house in which its tenants, many of them prostitutes, live between austerity. There lives also Father Nazario (Francisco Rabal), who suffers a robbery, and who lives particularly in misery, as well as Beatriz (Marga López), a woman who thinks about killing herself, and suffers for her past with Pinto (Noé Murayama); he abandons her. Shortly after, Andara (Rita Macedo), one of the prostitutes, has a discussion with another woman of that ilk, they fight, the police look for her, and Nazario hides her in his house. Andara, wanted, has to flee, burns evidence of his presence, too many problems for Father Nazario, who is almost expelled from his order, leaves town, claims willl live on alms. Nazario leaves, arrives at a construction, where he asks to work in exchange only for food, but is chased away by the other workers; then he meets with Beatriz, in another town, helps with the seemingly miraculous recovery of an ill girl. In another location, and again with Andara, she meets Ujo (Jesús Fernández), a dwarf who courts her, while the Pinto also reappears, wants to take Beatriz. But finally they can not escape from the police, who follow them and find them, arrest Andara, separate her from Ujo, Nazario is also arrested, and Beatriz ends up leaving with Pinto.
In this film the director, according to his own words, in his book
My Last Sigh, preferring even the trivial to the aesthetically very elaborate, wanted to give us a truer, closer approach, something denoted in that curious beginning of the film, with that stamp that literally almost "jumps" to life, its protagonists almost come alive to give us an idea of proximity to the folklore of the land that is going to be portrayed. And that was certainly the idea of the filmmaker, to dispense with excessive ornaments, the camera with subtle movements shows us the environment where everything will happen in that initial sequence, with measured glides of the camera, soft travellings for this. This is how we approach the world of Father Nazario, "I am Catholic, Apostolic and Roman", defines himself, as starting from the innermost fiber of Christianity, in those three ranks, with Rome as a great reference, living in austerity, enduring some mockery, among which, initially, he is told that with his lifestyle he loses his dignity. And in fact, he lives among poor people, in precarious places, with marginal beings, vulgar prostitutes, thieves, disputes, people of low ilk, this priest who comes to be a continuation of
Death in the Garden (1956)'s Father Lizardi, with the so referential theme of religion, always present in the work of Spanish, and always, of course, under his scathing and acid look. Nazario is a priest who professes Catholicism with a fullness that will make it unacceptable for human canons, for daily and pragmatic existence; his attitude is submissive, of surrender, resignation to his destiny as a servant of Catholicism, while the epiphany occurs, while his idea of Catholicism is divided, of what is Christianity in the praxis of men, in the daily reality. It is fascinating his dilemma, driven by circumstances, completely breaks with all known religious convention, even stripped of his clothes, because the world must stop recognizing him as a man of God. Since then, a real change is gestating, he will find himself alien to wherever he goes, he will be an outsider, without a place, perfectly exemplified when he comes to the construction, he looks for work, even in exchange for food alone. The consequences are dire, the workers, threatened, throw him out, he who wanted to work without profit, just to survive, without causing harm, ends up awakening envy, greed, violence; eloquent the shots that are heard while he moves away.
It is as if his very existence carries negative things, his willingness to help his neighbor, genuine, ends paradoxically enraging the neighbor, who seems not ready for this, for such a pure Christianity; the paradox, the irony, are thus served. Nazario affirms that he is on a journey of pilgrimage, a trip that will end by shattering his faith, a quixotic journey that will lead him to live on alms, not to stop practicing the gospel, but splitting from reality, from a Catholicism that does not correspond to his conception of faith, to his praxis. Naturally, his trip has its particular differences, as the Quixote, his madness, his behavior, will cause problems, is his downfall, and can not get away from it, but unlike the classic by Cervantes, while Nazario imparts his concept of faith, his journey is different from that of Don Quixote, since he is not a character who wanders between sanity and insanity. This is a man of faith, a completely sane religious who makes a voyage of astonishing discovery, in which his values and beliefs will be broken, he does not die as the self-proclaimed knight, not physically, but a part of him seems to have died, a death spiritual that is being announced -"for the first time in my life, I find it hard to forgive", he professes, his faith is breaking down-. In the end, after everything experienced, everything traveled, hesitate to receive the alms, what preached, finally cry, we have the uncertainty, what will this cracked subject do now, because after the initial rejection, then accepts the pineapple, sobs, is the final break of his beliefs, proclaiming and living on alms, rejects first, doubt, receives it, is symbolic that final action. Something of Bergmanian is in his religious doubts, in that skepticism that ends up hovering over him; if in Bergman the characters speak to God, and silence as a response is what upsets them, in Buñuel despair is more a bitter awakening, a bubble of vital, divine, existential conceptions that burst. Yes, the rupture is consummated, he walks without definite direction, neither physical nor spiritual, while the drum roll sounds, the only musical accompaniment, that Buñuel had to add for commitment with the producer. A Christian parallel is drawn in him, he is humiliated, taken almost to the extreme of Christ, but he is not divine, he will not endure like Jesus, but he will yield, he will break, and he will remain in uncertainty, and he is effectively portrayed in parallel to Jesus, they see him barefoot, with a cane, with women who seem to act as his apostles, he is even asked to perform miracles. They also believe him a healer, it is one of the many reactions of humans to interact with the priest who practices Catholicism, whom they call a heretic, a bizarre preacher, he is in fact an individual who undergoes quixotization, but this time they are not cavalry books, now it is the gospel. We have, ending the film, the sacrilegious of the jail, his final contact with humans before epiphany, affirming this one, "good ones over there, bad ones over here", it is almost the final interaction with that society and conventionalism that he escapes from.
Interesting and significant moments are, as when Andara begins to question Nazario, simple questions, simple questions of apparently obvious answers, in that symbolic simplicity, the priest is already facing the first questions, but his faith is still intact, he is just coming out to the environment that will fall apart. It is a detail of the filmmaker the fact that when Nazario is ready to answer the questions of Andara, his voice gradually fades. But there is more, the characters of Nazarin are sordid, Beatrice's conduct is certainly strange, disturbing is his bipolar behavior, after first seemingly suffering from the departure of the Pinto, he laughs with a jaw swing, and then have bizarre fantasies with him, having then disturbing torsions. She is horrified when she is made to see that deep down, she does not want spiritual relief or pilgrimage, she only wants carnal love, and revelation makes her explode in shame and laughter, and that's for both women seek the love of the man. Beatriz, in the end, in her strange nature, rests her head on Pinto's shoulder, bizarre masochism, can not escape from her own hell, and that is because in the end, there is no return, as Nazario had a quixotic journey, all the tormented characters end up worse than they started. Great moments of surrealism leaves Buñuel to flow in his film, one of them being the "deformation" of the frames, of the image, to enter into the psyche of Beatriz, who longs for the Pìnto, who wishes to possess him, to deprive him of his will, she wants to own a man. Her desire is intensely carnal, what apparently is her undoing, the Pinto, is what she most yearns to possess, but to possess in an absolute way, to take away his will, she soothes herself in a disturbing way, her nature is certainly ambivalent. Much surrealism is fully present and evident in the film, this having one of its most acute moments in the image of the laughing Christ, delirious tints are reached when Andara begins his flight. Another of the figures, Andara, after deciding to flee, burns all the evidence of his presence and direction, with a saint in front of everything, leading the incineration. Critics have found over the years diverse and indecipherable figures in the film, which is responsible for having fun and split Buñuel, asserting that he is as intrigued as the public; a good example of this is the pineapple of the final sequence. Technically, interesting visual resources employs the director, using images as elements of transition to move from one sequence to another, correct resource. Likewise, we observed in the film a dark tone, courtesy of the refined photography of the master Gabriel Figueroa, with whom it is known that Buñuel had small discrepancy when correcting some excessively precious frame, because Buñuel preferred closeness and simplicity instead of gratuitous ornament. In spite of it, Figueroa manages to produce the dark surroundings, the shady frames in which the confused and tormented characters play. Exemplary is the sequence when both women profess their love for the priest, and symbolically, he is unable to offer true shelter and response, plays with a tiny snail. The composition of the frames, the behavior of the camera and the shots used in this pleasant sequence are exemplary, aesthetically and visually of the most accomplished in the film by the director. In the same way, the love figure embodied by Buñuel is singular, something unprecedented in his filmography, the brief couple, the dwarf Ujo and a prostitute, the most marginal love, and probably the most beautiful love he portrayed, where all the differences, included obviously the physics, are drawn. At the end we see the dwarf, defeated, alone, looking down, while the police drive away his beloved prostitute, the most heartbreaking Buñuelian love. Another of Buñuel's winks, the feet, manifests when the mother of a girl dies in one of the precarious villages, and the camera shows her swollen limbs. A film of the most referential by Buñuel, carries his artistic DNA, his obsessions, his doubts, his discoveries, and, in short, continues his evolution as an artist; indispensable work for the follower of the buñuelian oeuvre.
Having Buñuel approached warmly to his return to work with European producers first with Death in the Garden (1956) and then with That is the Dawn (1956), would approach the Spanish to this work in which he outlined one of the figures that in next films will be repeated, that of a religious man of singular adventures. The genius of Talanda in this opportunity will adapt a not very well-known work of one of his major literary influences, the great countryman of his Benito Pérez Galdós, who tells us a story that certainly is not surprising that had powerfully seduced the Iberian director, the story of a a priest of very firm faith, apparently unbreakable principles that will be put to great test when the religious applies with the greatest discipline those principles, when he puts them into practice only to obtain rejection, violence even, in those to whom he tries to profess his faith. Naturally, the original work undergoes some modifications by the director, adapting certain details to the reality and Mexican contexts. The film had two-faces results, some repudiation and accusations of anti religion, but in turn recognitions at the Festival de Cannes, in a work fully identifiable as the work of this great great filmmaker, carrier of many of his most identifying stamps, increasingly developed.
The action begins in a humble Mexican town, a house in which its tenants, many of them prostitutes, live between austerity. There lives also Father Nazario (Francisco Rabal), who suffers a robbery, and who lives particularly in misery, as well as Beatriz (Marga López), a woman who thinks about killing herself, and suffers for her past with Pinto (Noé Murayama); he abandons her. Shortly after, Andara (Rita Macedo), one of the prostitutes, has a discussion with another woman of that ilk, they fight, the police look for her, and Nazario hides her in his house. Andara, wanted, has to flee, burns evidence of his presence, too many problems for Father Nazario, who is almost expelled from his order, leaves town, claims willl live on alms. Nazario leaves, arrives at a construction, where he asks to work in exchange only for food, but is chased away by the other workers; then he meets with Beatriz, in another town, helps with the seemingly miraculous recovery of an ill girl. In another location, and again with Andara, she meets Ujo (Jesús Fernández), a dwarf who courts her, while the Pinto also reappears, wants to take Beatriz. But finally they can not escape from the police, who follow them and find them, arrest Andara, separate her from Ujo, Nazario is also arrested, and Beatriz ends up leaving with Pinto.
Interesting and significant moments are, as when Andara begins to question Nazario, simple questions, simple questions of apparently obvious answers, in that symbolic simplicity, the priest is already facing the first questions, but his faith is still intact, he is just coming out to the environment that will fall apart. It is a detail of the filmmaker the fact that when Nazario is ready to answer the questions of Andara, his voice gradually fades. But there is more, the characters of Nazarin are sordid, Beatrice's conduct is certainly strange, disturbing is his bipolar behavior, after first seemingly suffering from the departure of the Pinto, he laughs with a jaw swing, and then have bizarre fantasies with him, having then disturbing torsions. She is horrified when she is made to see that deep down, she does not want spiritual relief or pilgrimage, she only wants carnal love, and revelation makes her explode in shame and laughter, and that's for both women seek the love of the man. Beatriz, in the end, in her strange nature, rests her head on Pinto's shoulder, bizarre masochism, can not escape from her own hell, and that is because in the end, there is no return, as Nazario had a quixotic journey, all the tormented characters end up worse than they started. Great moments of surrealism leaves Buñuel to flow in his film, one of them being the "deformation" of the frames, of the image, to enter into the psyche of Beatriz, who longs for the Pìnto, who wishes to possess him, to deprive him of his will, she wants to own a man. Her desire is intensely carnal, what apparently is her undoing, the Pinto, is what she most yearns to possess, but to possess in an absolute way, to take away his will, she soothes herself in a disturbing way, her nature is certainly ambivalent. Much surrealism is fully present and evident in the film, this having one of its most acute moments in the image of the laughing Christ, delirious tints are reached when Andara begins his flight. Another of the figures, Andara, after deciding to flee, burns all the evidence of his presence and direction, with a saint in front of everything, leading the incineration. Critics have found over the years diverse and indecipherable figures in the film, which is responsible for having fun and split Buñuel, asserting that he is as intrigued as the public; a good example of this is the pineapple of the final sequence. Technically, interesting visual resources employs the director, using images as elements of transition to move from one sequence to another, correct resource. Likewise, we observed in the film a dark tone, courtesy of the refined photography of the master Gabriel Figueroa, with whom it is known that Buñuel had small discrepancy when correcting some excessively precious frame, because Buñuel preferred closeness and simplicity instead of gratuitous ornament. In spite of it, Figueroa manages to produce the dark surroundings, the shady frames in which the confused and tormented characters play. Exemplary is the sequence when both women profess their love for the priest, and symbolically, he is unable to offer true shelter and response, plays with a tiny snail. The composition of the frames, the behavior of the camera and the shots used in this pleasant sequence are exemplary, aesthetically and visually of the most accomplished in the film by the director. In the same way, the love figure embodied by Buñuel is singular, something unprecedented in his filmography, the brief couple, the dwarf Ujo and a prostitute, the most marginal love, and probably the most beautiful love he portrayed, where all the differences, included obviously the physics, are drawn. At the end we see the dwarf, defeated, alone, looking down, while the police drive away his beloved prostitute, the most heartbreaking Buñuelian love. Another of Buñuel's winks, the feet, manifests when the mother of a girl dies in one of the precarious villages, and the camera shows her swollen limbs. A film of the most referential by Buñuel, carries his artistic DNA, his obsessions, his doubts, his discoveries, and, in short, continues his evolution as an artist; indispensable work for the follower of the buñuelian oeuvre.
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