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.

Daughter of Deceit (1951) - Luis Buñuel

Luis Buñuel continued developing his Mexican cinematographic facet, the moment of his career after that irrepressible surreal irruption of his beginnings, to generate what many brand as minor works, works that were made to subsist as, even, did the filmmaker with the feature that we are now dealing with. The film is based on a successful play by Carlos Arniches, adapted by the well-known pair of screenwriting fellows,b husband and wife, Luis and Janet Alcoriza, which in turn is based on a previously existing Spanish movie, in which Buñuel also got involved. With the natural transitions and adaptations of a typically Spanish work to Mexican lands and customs, we are introduced to the story of Don Quintin Guzman, a conservative man, who suddenly discovers that his wife deceives him, catches her in adultery, and she, in disgust, tells him that the newly-born daughter of both is actually the product of that adultery; the deceived subject believes her, and gives the baby to some neighbors, but years later, he will learn the truth about the girl, provoking unexpected situations. Almost consensually considered as a minor work, even being almost forgotten by its author, the picture certainly is not among the best of the Aragonese filmmaker, but will serve as much for those who want to study the work of the referential director, in his stage in Aztec lands.

            

In a humble home, appears Quintín Guzmán (Fernando Soler), with his wife, who disowns and scolds him for the desperate lack of money in the house. Quintín, aided by a friend, goes on a journey to earn good money, but the train where he was about to travel suffers a setback, the man returns almost immediately to his home, finding his wife, cheating on him with that friend. Quintín throws the woman out of the house, and she, in a moment, shouts to him that the baby is not actually his daughter, and seeing this, the tormented individual ends up leaving the baby in a neighboring house. Quintín continues his life alone, surrounded only by his bodyguards, Angelito (Fernando Soto) and El Jonrón (Nacho Contla), ignoring the mother's pleas to return the child. Time passes, the girl becomes a woman, her name is Martha (Amparo Garrido), who one day knows the young Paco (Ruben Rojo), among them flows quickly an idyll. Martha lives with Lencho (Roberto Meyer), and his daughter, his adoptive sister Jovita (Alicia Caro); before dying, the biological mother of Martha confesses to Quintín that the girl was indeed her daughter. The man starts searching, and manages to find the house where Jovita lives; initially difficult, finally finds the girl. While Jovita has some success like cabaret singer, and in spite of initial differences of Quintín with Paco, father and daughter, and son-in-law, forget differences and wait for the happy birth of the first-born.

We can nottice a characteristic Buñuelian starting of the picture, when the camera focuses the detail of a light bulb, the same one that soon gets broken, and the camera recedes to show the complete figure, the precarious home of the Guzmán spouses; in this simple figure, the good Aragonese is already slipping the reality of the home, misery, precariousness, light bulb gets burned, the needs press them, the filmmaker always displayed signs of economy and narrative eloquence. From the first moments, we will also see a curious performance of the camera in the beginning of the movie, we can see a singular development of the lens, there are zooms in and zooms out, which add to certain travellings that generate a peculiar and attractive dynamic, which unfortunately dissipates and gets lost promptly. These ephemeral and striking displays of looseness in the camera, are surprisingly the only sample of something different, something different from conventional visual narration, and the minutes go by, we will not appreciate other moments that break that usually conventional tone that permeates the whole feature. In dribs and drabs that singular behavior of the camera will rteturn, a certain trembling, tremulous effect, which in certain moments resurges to engender comedy, or tense moments; but what I said, appears with eyedropper. To return to that point, in a picture in which it is known that the budget is not something that was abundant, Buñuel was forced to appeal to his narrative economy, when in little more than ten minutes the crux of the drama is already raised; without more ornaments -because the financial resources did not allow it-, already established the first part of his conventional narrative structure, the introduction, the drama that the Guzman are experiencing. Thus, within the linear structure of the feature, within its narrative and audiovisual linearity, the most remarkable narrative resource, with distance, comes to be that ellipsis, that great temporal leap that is applied automatically when Martha's adoptive drunk father closes the doors of his cupboard. While the screams and the cries flows, instantly afterwards, when the cupboard is opened, the decades went by, the just-a-moment-ago baby girl instantly is now a young woman of twenty years, the adoptive mother has already died, the adoptive father has aged, and the booze worsen his situation. Within a flat and linear narrative structure, being this one of the director's most conventional pictures, this resource, without being too flashy or extraordinary, is the most technically salient element.

The work is characterized by transparently portraying the town, the charros, the popular customs of the lower class to which the protagonists belong, considering of course that the play, originally Spanish, has been adapted to the Mexican canons. And so, among other figures, in the character of Jonrón we have the typical Mexican macho, somewhat caricatured version, as much of the film. Important figure within the Mexican scope, the stereotype of the virile charro, who wants to solve practically everything with bullets raids. All the Spanish customs have to migrate to Mexico, the famous Alcoriza spouses in this way, change Spanish soil by the Mexican moor in their history (and in their real life also, actually), with all the characteristic and representative figures of Aztec lands. And to a certain extent this is a film that can be considered a remake, in days when the term was still not coined at all, is a feature in which in many sequences the dialogues were simply mexicanized to move the story from one context to another. In that course, in this Mexicanization, Buñuel seems to have got lost, who also claims almost not remembering the production of this film, assures that "nothing came out well", and that it was a alimentary film, made with the purpose of subsisting, to obtain sustenance, situation quite common in this stage of the Iberian filmmaker. This softening of the film, added to the precariousness of the production, the budget shortage, resulted in a feature quite removed from the majority of directives of the Aragonese filmmaker, configuring a picture, although not bad or deficient, yes between the less achieved or more successful of the Spanish director. In this way, much of the film, much of the original Spanish canons, are transmuted to the conventions of Mexican cinematography, the drama is sweetened and softened with comic situations. It gets generated a unique blend of Mexican cinema with even a few doses of western, as caricatured as exemplified in the scene of the discussion of the Jonron with another subject in the bar, an excellent example of the light humor that slides on the movie, a warm mood which is correctly dosed throughout the footage of the work. That American halo will continue to be printed, we see girls, dancers, cabarets, even the young Jovita, wishing to success as a cabaret singer, surrounded by night shows, and charros that warmly remembrance the absent cowboys.

There is also the infallible figure of the drunkard, Martha's adoptive father, perennially drunk, the despicable abuser, first martyring his wife to death, then the young adoptive; always with the bottle of liquor in his hand, and always ready to hit women, is a negative element, but always present in the sketch of Mexican society, and almost in any society actually. It's Angelito, Quentin's bodyguard, from whom it comes a lot of the movie's hilarity, the picardies, the comic moments, in different circumstances will always have the funny dose that serves to finish giving that comical general shade to the film. He continues to collaborate with Fernando Soler, an illustrious Mexican actor with whom he has worked so well, they cinematographically synergized, as it gets attested in the reiterated works they performed together, as well as the repeated mutual praises of the respected artists. Soler fulfills well the role, the solvent Mexican actor demonstrates why he became a pillar of this stage of Buñuel's cinema, the actor who had a lot of director, who was said to direct himself, leaves his stamp of interpretive sufficiency, always serious and distinguished. Buñuel was upset because of the significant changes from one country to another, he denied of the change of the original title, Quintín el Amargao (something like Quintín the bitter), to the Daughter of the deceit, for interests of producers, Buñuel asserted that if the original title had been retained, the concurrence in the premiere and subsequent projections of the film would have been much greater, since the Spanish people would have attended knowing that they would appreciate a work well known and appreciated by them. All this, added to global results that did not satisfy the filmmaker, ends up configuring the poor impression that Buñuel had of this picture of his. It is curious to hear the character, Quintín complaining, "nothing comes out well", feeling almost like an echo, as an alter ego of the director, who probably felt during the shooting that many things did not actually come out, and we see the protagonist, he denies of his bitterness, in the midst of the joy of a party. At the end of the film, the filmmaker almost seems to want to shake off linearity, the behavior of the camera already takes on other outlooks, with an almost deformity of some shots shown, certainly a flashy performance, lukewarm but perennial in that street of singular structures, which, as unreasonable as it may sound, for a moment seemed to me to refer to an echo of expressionism. In that colophon sequence, the protagonist speaks to us, speaks to the camera, almost the filmmaker wants to leave the mold, it is as if, to some extent having lost the drama, when feeling simple the end, too easy, something simple, a slap almost is notticed, like if old Buñuel, the surrealist and uncontrollable, winked at us. Thus ends the so-called Buñuel's alimentary film, for some considered minor, but of course a work worthy of attention on the part of the immortal Aragonese.