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.

Great Casino (1948) - Luis Buñuel

It began with this film a new stage in the cinematographic path for the master Luis Buñuel, the genius of Talanda opened a new moment, in every sense of the word for a creator, after his enduring surrealist exercises. After a few hesitant steps for Hollywood studios, Buñuel arrives to Mexico to get into exile, an unthinking course in his career as a filmmaker, where unexplored situations will have to face the director, who did not exactly have a placid debut in Aztec lands. He began his collaboration with his famous producer Óscar Dancigers, with whom so many immortal exercises would produce in successive years, but still would not have contact with Luis Alcoriza, his most important scriptwriter. Buñuel from the beginning practiced the cinematographic adaptations, of the literature to the big screen, and to initiate what would be a practically religious custom in his cinema, adapts the work of Michel Veber, adapted and transferred to Mexican terrain by Mauricio Magdaleno, collaborating the own director as well. The Iberian tells the story of Mexican oil workers, who are immersed in a mystery when the master disappears mysteriously, and his beautiful sister comes from Argentina to visit him, and everyone begins to look for him, while a romance is born between her and the main worker, nor more or less than Jorge Negrete and Libertad Lamarque.


The action begins in a prison, Gerardo Ramírez (Negrete) and Demetrio García (Julio Villarreal) are there, but they manage to escape, they meet Heriberto (Agustín Isunza), who gets them a job in the oil plantation run by José Enrique Irigoyen (Francisco Jambrina), who suffers from a shortage of workers. Irigoyen is pressured by Fabio (José Baviera), who threatens to close his plantations for not having work; but they all start to work, then relax in the casino of the locality, where dances and sings Camelia (Mercedes Barba), in addition to Nanette (Fernanda Albany). Once the work began, Fabio continues to press Irigoyen, who suddenly disappears mysteriously, and shortly after arrives from Argentina his attractive sister, Mercedes (Lamarque), surprised over the disappearance of her brother. She does not reveal her identity as Irigoyen's sister, and almost unwittingly, gets a job in the casino, singing, where everyone notices her beauty, promptly calling the attention of Gerardo, who tries to woo her. But seeing the situation, she confesses to Gerardo that she is sister of the employer, and together they begin to investigate, while some thugs sent by Fabio try to liquidate the worker. Finally they discover Fabio, assassinated José Enrique, face him, and is eliminated, leaving the couple in love, Mercedes and Gerardo, together.


In this picture, a turning point in the Buñuelian filmography, the opening sequence in prison is the return of the Spanish genius behind the cameras after years of absence, the master oils the gears of his creative circuit, those first sequences, frames and shots mean his return and forced metamorphosis, forced adaptation to new canons. In those moments in which the filmmaker resumed to the profession, the objectivity of the approaches gets warmly broken with that subjective frame at the time of already escaping the cloister, with the bars then destroyed. Likewise, we will observe different exercises in similar scenes, somewhat timid, as the director returned after years of silence, for example in the bar, some sweep scans take our attention from one character to another, there are zooms in and out to distances from the camera, the filmmaker goes returning to the way. There is also the ellipsis he obtains with the melting of the suitcases of Mercedes, newcomer to Tampico, to give the temporary jump to another moment and space of the film, are technical resources with which the Iberian acclimated to the office again; and so, twists and turns of the camera, and some frames show that the genius, although for a few years in the drydock, still retained the talent, which should simply be re-polished. The feature soon manifests itself as a shining excercise for its starring, for from the first sequence we see the immortal charro, Jorge Negrete, singing to deceive his captors, and to escape from prison; they did not wait nor even five minutes for one of the film's distinctive features to manifest, its stars looking for an international showcase for their careers. It is a bit exaggerated how Negrete is "promoted" in the film, inserting sequences of his song in a practically gratuitous way, without any nexus or connection with the scene shooted, suddenly we hear him releasing some notes, as in the casino, it is shown a little excessive that eagerness of being lucid, to exhibit the charro. Similar case with Libertad, beautiful and young, although her participation in general lines seems to have been rather innocuous for the filming, also with more than a sequence of singing. But Buñuel himself made very good friends with Negrete, however, with this film was born what would be known as alimentary films in the filmmaker, films made by necessity, to survive, or to become known in a new scene, the cinematographic Mexican scenario, which at that moment, with skeptical eyes, had him for a complete stranger.



After the first third of the film, it is more than evident the new filmic nature that Buñuel adopts, a linear, flat picture, astonishingly antagonistic to his previous An Andalusian Dog (1929) and The Golden Age (1930), now a film whose argument never liked the director very much. In this sort of comedy with vodevilescos, musical dyes, a light village history, the director is almost felt drowning in what is the feature, an exercise of shining of its protagonists stars, a romantic musical in which does not flow one single kiss. Heriberto and the French Nanette are the ones who put in a good measure the hilarious touch, the funny and witty phases of the film, a humor that is distended in the feature, and between that humor, how to forget a personage when it is said to him that could spend more days in prison, to which he responds "Better, where does one is given to eat without doing anything?". It is also the famous trio Calavera, which as well flows in different moments of the film, each more delirious and fun, more unexpected than the previous one. In this romance story, with certain adventurous tones, in which the musical sequences are noticed for moments quite disjointed with the whole, the filmmaker is felt like a little out of place, as in effect some testimony of a visitor to the shooting would assert. The movie at its time should have disconcert the connoisseurs of the director's work, so there aren't many of his capital topics, only a few, such as the sequence where the character of Camelia is introduced, with that well-shaped leg of hers that becomes the core of the frame, a detail certainly notorious as a creation of the filmmaker, whose weakness for the flesh and sex is one of the watchwords of all his oeuvre. One of the best moments is when Gerardo talks to Nanette, she talks without stopping, while Negrete, without paying attention, observes a jug of beer. Certainly the scarcity of surrealism in the film is almost total, something understandable, given the conjuncture of the moment for the director, but it is touching to see Buñuel, in that context, sliding timidly but with determination, his sonship, his inclination by surrealism. Continuing, one of the most famous scenes in the cortege of Jorge Negrete to Libertad Lamarque, and Buñuel, well-known enemy of showing kisses on screen, uses the resource of showing Negrete suggestively playing with a stick, a branch that introduces in the oil sludge, introduces and removes the mass while falling in love both individuals. A sequence that seemed a warm wink to another sequence of The Golden Age, a brief sequence, fleeting, but full of meaning, and that carries in its simplicity much of the essence of the Spanish.



Also, within the few details that breaks the audiovisual linearity of the story, we have the sequence in which Negrete liquidates a subject who was furtively behind a curtain, and while he hits him with a small replica of the statue of Liberty (detail by the way well specified by the director), the image of a shattering glass is superimposed. This detail, once again brief, fleeting, is one more detail of the filmmaker, who reinforces the violence of the performed act, and incidentally shows us, reminds us, though lightly, which director is behind the cameras.... continues to beat the surrealist feel. This was one of the most complicated and rugged filming for Spanish, whose difficulty extended even to postproduction. Well known is the great difficulty that Buñuel went through working with Lamarque, anxious to build a reputation in Mexican industry, his diva attitudes and intrusions really hampered Buñuel's performance. On the other hand, and of another nature, are the difficulties brought by Negrete, leader of union of actors whose affiliations antagonized him with the Mexican industry, that boycotted his films; it is even said that in the projection rooms, his films were projected defectively, intentionally with bad image or sound, certainly a handicap that struck Buñuel, who suffered collateral damages to work with the referential Mexican actor. Buñuel could not stand Lamarque -apparently something he had in common with Negrete-, he affirmed that he would not work with the Argentine actress again, and he did it not, we appreciated her in the long sequences of her singing, because, like Negrete, stars demanded much notoriety in the movie, for calvary of the Spanish director. Also, according to Amparo Martínez Herranz, a great scholar of the Buñuelian work, this is the film in which no doubt more corrections or modifications on the march were made, changes applied at the time of filming; in this way, she encloses bits of the technical script that show the handwritten corrections, deletions or additions of some dialogues, some plans, although it is asserted that it had no real impact on the final result. Buñuel himself declared that the script of the film seemed mediocre, but by the time the filmmaker was there, it was undoubtedly a work, a film that had to be accepted to reinsert in the cinema world, the passage tax to assume. It was a forced and dramatic change, after its surrealist beginnings, and as some of the students of the Buñuelian work affirm, it is a picture of the type in which the spectators look every time some wink or distinctive sign of the director, thus of conjunctural was the moment. However, camera management and sometimes the play of light and shadows give us a pleasant surprise, that the director, despite being long time without work, had not lost touch and had all the technical talent that years later he would finish perfecting. Is a little-cinematographic work, compared to other masterpieces of his, something normal because it is the work of re-hooking of the director, a necessary film, fundamental in his filmography.