The Milky Way (1969) - Luis Buñuel

Buñuel had begun for the sixties what was his final stage, the final stage of his film career, finally had been able to get the long-awaited repatriation to European soil, the filmmaker was back to shot in Europe in a stable and sustained basis, with all the means that this meant, it was time to reach its highest audiovisual heights. Buñuel decided to make this film during a presentation of Belle de jour (1967), and together with his then-habitual Jean-Claude Carrière, he elaborates a work of his own, and with great rigor in its elaboration, usual in the spanish, generating a script based on many illustrious texts and encyclopedias of the subject, theology, diverse heresies to complete this bizarre and surreal story. It is the singular story of two individuals who embark on the traditional road to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, the well-known pilgrimage journey to seek absolution and free the soul from sins, but on that path, a very diverse collection of characters and events will get happening, many even in another space and time. One of the most personal works of the director, addressing one of its traditional topics, religion, Christianity, of course from the singular buñuelian magnifying glass, with the touches of a surrealism that the director had already curdled and evolved.

                 

We see a quick introduction to the history of Santiago de Compostela, traditional site of pilgrimages around the world. We see two vagabonds, Pierre (Paul Frankeur) and Jean (Laurent Terzieff), walk on a highway, receive alms from an individual, then board a car from which they are soon evicted. Two individuals then have heated religious discussion about Eucharist and transubstantiation, the vagabonds attend Rome, they see how Priscillian (Jean-Claude Carrière) was restored in his power, in gnostic meeting. In a hotel, the head waiter, Richard (Julien Bertheau), talks about his Christian beliefs, while the Marquis de Sade (Michel Piccoli) talks to a girl about his heresy. Then we see Jesus (Bernard Verley), his mother Mary (Edith Scob), is the multiplication of bread and wine. Pierre and Jean continue on their way, walk along the highway, attend an unforeseen accident, in whose car they see an Angel of Death (Pierre Clémenti), we see a nun submit to martyrdom, she is crucified as Christ. Later, a Jesuit (Georges Marchal) and a Jansenist (Jean Piat) fight for the concepts of freedom. They attend a preaching of a story about the Virgin, there is another story about despising lust, they find a prostitute on the way, they follow her, and a last sequence with Christ takes place, he heals the blind.

The beginning of the film is correct, where the parallel is drawn and we are told what is Santiago de Compostela, Campo de Estrellas (stars field), the title of the film's Milky Way is justified, the path to seek absolution, pilgrimage; likewise it fuses in a great way, with a great ellipsis, the antiquity, that old map, with the contemporaneity, its cars and highways. It was noticeable that Belle de jour's production was still fresh then, that initial sequence is a good summary, an advance of what the film will be and its temporary jumps, without doubt that narrative freedom, how free it was to chain and structure the story practically to pleasure was something that pleased the director. As in that film, the severe narrative freedom leads to that rapturous liberty to capture and merge different spaces and times, that freedom is certainly what allows infinity, the infinite versatility of possibilities in the film, as it was done in the past, a collection of diverse stories of space and time, just to give an example, and with the obvious distances from one case to another, we have Leaves From Satan's Book (1921) by Dreyer. Thus, we have Priscillian and his faithful, in the fourth century, or the duel between the Jansenist and the Jesuit, discussion that happens in the seventeenth century, also the spanish bishop with his faithful leads us to the sixteenth century. The core of the film is the subtle and serene parade of heresies, a journey that transgresses the temporal space barriers, seen symbolically in the pilgrimage journey undertaken to Santiago de Compostela, the Field of Stars, the Milky Way, unbeatable scenery certainly for the intentions of the iberian. And the filmmaker portrays key figures of Christianity, the Eucharist, the transubstantiation, are captured in the film in the manner of Buñuel of course, and with a naturalness that helps the surrealism to develop just more fluently, naturally, simply, with worldliness. Thus, the initial discussion on transubstantiation, which ends with the priest being imprisoned, is therefore a discussion that unfolds anodynely, in a mundane way, bringing this whatt is portrayed to everyday, common life. But apart from figures, it also raises questions, whether God is a single entity, or is fragmented in the Holy Trinity, to name an example.

In this way, the VI century is fused vigorously, the gnosticism of Prisciliano, it is undoubtedly the Buñuelian style, a questioning as fervent as no other one, to the religion, these questions will flow copiously, and also naturally, in a very similar way to the style of the spanish, simple but harsh questions, almost like Father Lizardi in Death in the Garden (1956), Nazarín (1959) or, of course, in Simon of the Desert (1965). The questions, the inquisitive questions faced by his characters, was something inevitable in almost all the films of the filmmaker, but in this opportunity, the nature, the origin of these questions, is entirely religious, an inescapable subject for the filmmaker, of rigorous Christian formation in his childhood; it is his script, his story, his religious obsessions, a work that is very much his. Again, the protagonist character of Buñuel undertakes a journey that will mean discovery, but in this case, different from Viridiana (1961) and Nazario, there is no fall, now there are diverse adventures, of different times and characters, far away chronologically, but close and united in another aspect: the subject of heresy and Christian questions. However, Buñuel was not known for giving us certainty in his films, on the contrary, many of his most famous endings, such as Belle de jour, responded, in his own words, to his own uncertainty, to his own lack of certainty of the filmmaker regarding the outcome for his characters in what he raises, but also regarding the questions he poses; shares the director, lets us share in his uncertainty, his acid lack of certainty. On this occasion, like the young priest who asks a more experienced one, there are inquisitive questions, which the filmmaker makes to himself, but again, there will be no answers, the debates are shaped, not the solutions; nevertheless, debates are quite well documented, because the master delved into recognized texts, such as History of the Spanish Heterodoxes of Menéndez and Pelayo and Manuscript found in Zaragoza, among others; the director documented a lot on the subject, sometimes it is even said that he transcribed literally many of the dialogues and parliaments of the characters on which he relied. There is a constant reference in the film to the idea that on earth is better than in heaven, a Gnostic thought is postulated, a very buñuelian concept is also prefigured, the fact of a human being meditating not to be the real owner of his actions, that freedom does not exist, that liberty is a ghost. By hating science and technology, will end up approaching God, says a character, the characteristic irony of spanish continues to reinforce the idea of ​​Gnosticism.

It is interesting that, according to the theme portrayed, Christ is shown earthly, without his divine aura, chewing, laughing, doing nonsense, walking awkwardly, in effect, it is a gnostic, trivialized and mundanized story, the path is marked in a way of the picture. Jesus performs final miracle, returns sight to the blind, but says, disturbingly, that he does not bring peace, that he will alienate parents and children, daughters and mothers, he says to those who follow him, like blind. Buñuel can finally portray with his corrosive style the religion, the Christianity, and he does not restrain, there is the powerful figure of the execution to the Pope, the questioning of the church, something nothing strange in Buñuel, it acquires very strong features here, we also have the shot to the rosary of the Virgin, the usual self-confidence of the director to face Christian symbols and figures. Some characters are warmly sketched, insinuated, like the young mute on the road, with scars in the manner of stigmas, recalling Christ; others see Satan in the old man who takes them to ancient Rome, and we have the emergence of another important historical figure in the Buñuel work, Sade, to whom will be possible to see merged with the other stories thanks to another escape of space and time. His winks will never disappear, Jesus Christ, in the scene of the virgin telling him not to shave, adjust the blade, in the manner of An Andalusian Dog (1929), the priests made skeletons, of The Golden Age (1930). While the eternal figures for a moment are absent (incredible but true, in the film we can not find a female with self-confidence showing off their ominous thighs and calves), we have clear the wink of the feet at a certain moment. We will see more than once the image of individuals walking on a highway, a road with a blue and clear sky background, an image that would become repeated in his later exercises, the director had finally reached his final aesthetic. Technically it does not reach the mastery of recent films, such as The Diary of a Chambermaid (1964), because the background, rather than the form, is all this time. But that is why the genius in the style of the iberian is not absent, we have the sequence of the priest speaking to a small congregation, among them the vagabonds, speaks to the camera with traveling included, the character looks at us, in a pleasant technical resource rarely seen in the spanish. Another resource, again the priest talking to a couple about how to please the virgin repudiating the lust, the priest is outside but at the same time inside their bedroom, at the foot of their beds. Buñuel, already in the final stage of his career, has a consolidated group of actors, who will accompany him to the end of his filmography, we have Michel Piccoli, Georges Marchal, Delphine Seyrig, Julien Bertheau, all always well directed by the master, and Jean-Claude Carrière, the co-writer, repeats as an actor in a brief foray. The end was perfect to the structuring of the work, finally have reached their destination, Santiago de Compostela, again we take as a reference to Belle de jour, that ending that connects perfectly with the beginning, turns the feature into a capicúa picture, everything ends articulated, like a cycle that repeats itself, after all witnessed, we return to the beginning, the subject who said that they must find a prostitute, the prostitute is finally found, and repeats what the initial subject said, wants to engender children, and call them "you are not my people" and "no more mercy", phrases that continue with what is captured in the film. Buñuel was already in the final phase of his film career, his style is almost finished, his art is powerful, some of his major exercises were close to being done, and this is an exemplary film of the maturity achieved by the master from Calanda.

The Diary of a Chambermaid / Le journal d'une femme de chambre (1964) - Luis Buñuel

It would finally happen with this film something for Buñuel not unwanted, the filmmaker returned to work in European lands, the Spanish prodigal son was repatriated, if not to Spain, yes to Europe, after decades of absence, after years working in Mexico and acquiring expertise in the craft of filmmaker. Long way had been traveled, not a little evolution and maturity the Iberian has experienced in this point of his life, and his career, his growth and greater definition in his guidelines were already undeniable, when returning to the old continent, he will finally have the opportunity to get the resources to take his work to some of the greatest artistic cusps. The director returns to adapt a literary history, after leaving this custom for some films, now based on a work by Octave Mirbeau, portraying, with corrosive look, the experiences of an attractive woman, who works as a maid, and that when arriving at a new house, will generate diverse masculine reactions, at the same time that she will look for an advantageous pairing for her social condition, while she develops in an environment dominated by aristocrats plagued of despicable defects. It is a film in which Buñuel applies a lot of everything he has learned, from the technical aspect it is one of his most brilliant films, although he has left his surrealism noticeably aside.

               

The actions begin with a young woman, who arrives by train in the countryside, in France, she is Céléstine (Jeanne Moreau), is picked up by Joseph (Georges Géret), taken to a residence where she will be a maid. Meet the gentlemen of the house, Mr. Monteil (Michel Piccoli) and Mrs. Monteil (Françoise Lugagne); she also meets another servant, Marianne (Muni), and Mr. Rabour (Jean Ozenne), father of the lord of the house, who gives boots to her. Soon she is drawing attention, Mr. Monteil professes admiration and desire, then she meets the former military Mauger (Daniel Ivernel); she disturbs Mrs. Monteil by her ways and certain refinements that she brings from Paris, while her husband continues trying to seduce the maid. They receive the visit of the village priest (Jean-Claude Carrière), to whom Mrs. Monteil asks for marital advice, and shortly after they discover Mr. Rabour dead. Joseph in a moment violates and kills a local girl, then tries to seduce Céléstine; Mr. Monteil argues arduously with Mauger, his annoying neighbor. Céléstine, despite suspecting Joseph and his crime, gives in to his courtship, but listens to Mauger's marriage proposal. The police investigate, identify the murderer, arrest him; Céléstine marries Mauger, but learns that Joseph will go free when there is no evidence against him, while a political march takes place.

In this work by the Iberian master, the filmmaker is not long in demonstrating his experience, in showing his expertise obtained with the camera, in his handling, and as well returning a small tribute to the then effervescent and fashionable cinematic current; in this way, the camera in hand will flow, watchword of the Nouvelle Vague, revealing the solemnity and great skill of Buñuel upon entering French lands, where he filmed. The camera behaves with extraordinary ease, reaches a new level the performance of the tool in its freedom, with enormous sobriety moves through the rooms of the residence, it is certainly one of the formally most powerful films of the director, as if when beimg finally working again in Europe, the filmmaker would be insuflated new inspiration. There will be zooms-in, zooms-out, detail shots are made, but the most striking are the sequence shots, repeated exercises never before developed with such prolixity and sobriety by the Iberian, a tribute certainly to the Nouvelle Vague and the management of the camera by that current professed; the genius was already experienced, he was already in the fullness of his faculties, the filmmaker is delighted with his camera, so longed for return to Europe, Buñuel is shown neat, is striving, is one of his films technically majors. The return to Europe, by the way, did not happen in the way the filmmaker thought, but it happened; this film initially he wanted to shoot it in Mexico, with Silvia Pinal as the protagonist, but due to certain problems -scandals caused by Viridiana (1961), and the consequent refusal to shoot there Tristana-, finally, and with the intermediation of the great Fernando Rey, Buñuel made the contacts to return triumphantly to Europe. Thus, the Aragonese could finally forge indelible friendships in his return, valuable and enduring friendships such as screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, in this film acting as well, and producer Serge Silberman; these genuine friendships, especially with the scriptwriter, were some of the pillars on which the final stage of the director's career would be supported. After a long wait, and after noting that there was no other way, finally the born in Calanda shoots again in Europe, new friendships are born, new paths are born, the final stage of Buñuel, for many the brightest, was already on the verge of hatch.

As always in his narrative economy, Buñuel draws us quickly to his female protagonist, she does not doubt in expressing a certain disdain for the field where she is arriving, soon Joseph makes an observation on her shoes, responding with attempts to play innocent; she is cynical, and unequivocally careerist. Her arrival, from the first moment, does not leave anyone indifferent, Mr. Monteil is uneasy in his first contact with her, not to mention Patriarch Rabour and his unique fetish fixation, which is nothing but a reflection of the world inside of the filmmaker himself. The singular feminine upsets everything, she, coming from Paris, disturbs the residents of the countryside, and, in spite of being a maid, dazzles servitude as well as bourgeois, being exemplary the scene of her awakening jealousy and annoyance in the lady of the home for using perfume, something that neither she, aristocrat, usually does. Returning to this theme, it is one of the films in which he most clearly portrays some of his eternal obsession themes, his fetishes, his incorrigible weakness, the female legs, of Jeanne Moreau this time, while the old patriarch fondles her calves, and in his book My last breath, tell us the director: "I have always been sensitive to women's walking, as well as to their gaze. In The Diary of a Chambermaid, during the booty scene, I had a real pleasure in making her walk and filming her. When she walks, her feet trembles slightly on the heel of the shoe. Disturbing instability. Wonderful actress, I limited myself to follow her, hardly correcting her. She taught me about the character things that I did not suspect "; it is not difficult to notice that Rabour in this case is dressed as Buñuel's alter ego, admiring her walking in a room. Yes, he pours, as usual, the filmmaker in his film, we notice his personality, his personal images, and in that sense the fetishist filmmaker is freer than ever in another of his quintessential figures, the feet, the feet of the Moreau, now coming to the detail of the booties, the old collector; he revels as has not been seen before in portraying his foot fetish. Then we will see the old Rabour, inert in his bed, but clinging tightly to the booties, a delirium that the filmmaker allows himself; the fetish of the shoes even acquires another aspect to be the key to discover the murder. Looms again as well the hobby of the entomologist, hobby that certainly shared with Carrière, in the form of a butterfly that is liquidated with bullets, or ants that flow in a garden; Buñuel's winks never fail, and they turn coherent and recognizable his cinema.

The director draws us a terrible portrait of the bourgeois, racist and fascist, not in vain changed the setting of the book, to take it to the twenties of the twentieth century, the interwar period in which totalitarian regimes arose, right-wing extremists, anti-Semitism, the director offers a look at some topics that he knew first-hand. Buñuel directs his very acid look towards bourgeois morality, which for him was always immoral, and that because everyone portrayed has defects, some severely despicable, the director does not leave a puppet with a head, his portrait is corrosive and bitter; it is a parade of miseries of the bourgeoisie, his look is hopeless, as actually many times he left patent in his films. Lustful, liars, anti-Semites, pedophiles and murderers, bitter vision of humanity, formerly in The Exterminating Angel (1962), was in urban bourgeois, now in country bourgeois. This is crowned in the twisted love of the maid and the criminal, he is a murderous pedophile, and she, knowing that, accepts him not as a lover, but as a companion, and he, almost as if replying, also seduces Marianne by his way. Singular moment is when Céléstine and Joseph consummate their intention of marriage, then in the dark, in bed, she exhorts him disturbingly to admit that he raped and killed the girl, there are certain details that make her disturbing. She is an upstart, is a weathervane, Machiavellian, flirt with everyone and marries an older man without hesitation to improve her condition, finally has an uncertain outcome, as the black stormy clouds eventually strengthen. Symbolically, Joseph, the most despicable of all, shielded himself in the army, in religion, law, order, country, in some other pillars of society, and she, unlikely, kisses him and accepts his carnal offer. The characters are typically buñuelian, although Manichaeism does not appear with all the vigor of other opportunities, they are complex characters, some not completely bad or good, especially her, and it is something that the filmmaker considered could harm the acceptance of the public, there is no figure with which they can fully identify. Thus, we have significantly the priest advising abstention, there should be no pleasure in marital relations, to avoid it, he tells to Mrs. Monteil, the languor and sexual neutrality of her collides with the express libidine of her husband. We have a remarkable sequence, without words, portrays the most despicable action, Joseph is mean, abject, outrages and kills the girl, Buñuel is a master talking to us, suggesting, narrating with images, and it will be another one of those memorable images, the bleeding legs of the girl, with snails moving to pachydermic rhythm for them, suggesting the vileness that has happened, and the time the corpse has been there. To a lesser extent there is the scene of love, again without words, the intercourse of Céléstine and Joseph is given to understand in the dark. The sisters of Buñuel asserted how clear they could appreciate the director's life, childhood embodied in the film -something ineluctable for the connoisseur of Buñuel's work-, among other things, for those snails, an image of the director's childhood, and likewise in his bestiary, a boar and a rabbit are now added. In the film there is no surrealism, it is a conventional feature, a thorny portrait of country bourgeois, in which relegated the political part of the original book, not saving though the end of that "Viva Chiappe!", vindicating his particular revenge against the right-wing who vetoed The Golden Age. The return to Europe finally takes place, new directions open to the already mature director, his film is formally one of his best works, stands out as always directing his actors -even speaking with a certain warmth of the French actress Muni-, the Iberian director was ready to give the best of his art.

Death in the Garden (1956) - Luis Buñuel

Buñuel would continue his development as a filmmaker, and being the particular year of the release of this film, 1956, a cyclical year in his career, a great change was beginning to get shaped in the director, a change that had begun with Thus is the aurora, shortly before released. Continuing with his personal tradition, the Spanish genius adapted a literary work to the cinema, by José-André Lacour, adapted to the script by his famous collaborator, Luis Alcoriza, and with his own participation also in the process, a remarkable tandem very often repeated, usually with success. In the film Buñuel is merging some of his old topics and obsessions, with some new artistic and thematic affiliations, undoubtedly is maturing to reach his fullness in European lands, in later films. The story portrayed shows a group of individuals, living in an undetermined place, where diamonds abound, where an adventurer arrives, finding an environment of rebellion among the diamond workers and military who evict them; in the violent collision between the groups, the adventurer, a priest, an old man and his daughter, as well as a prostitute, will undertake desperate flight through the jungle. Buñuel follows the line of films like Robinson Crusoe (1954), but above of all the aforementioned film, he is already exploring new ways, and sees that the path of European film coproductions is already an inevitable and indefectible way.

                   

In an undetermined country, area of diamonds lands, a group of villagers, diamond-diggers, are informed that they will be evicted by military forces, try to protest, but they are repressed. In there, lives Castin (Charles Vanel), with his deaf-mute daughter Maria (Michèle Girardon), then arrives the stranger Shark (Georges Marchal); in the midst of the turbulent environment, Father Lizardi (Michel Piccoli) tries to persuade everyone not to rebel. Shark meets Djin (Simone Signoret), attractive prostitute who gives him to the military, who accuse him of a robbery. But Shark manages to escape the dungeon, the military kill many of the villagers, Castin is accused of exhorting the people to revolt, he hides in Djin's house and proposes marriage, and she accepts, with the old man's money in mind. They embark on the run, Shark, Djin, Lizardi, Castin and his daughter, also aided by Chenko (Tito Junco). The merciless jungle punishes them, while the soldiers are always following their trail, Djin, and then Castin will get losing strength, since scarces food and rains copiously. Shark then finds food and even jewelry, it seems that salvation has come, they must build a raft and cross a lake. But Castin suddenly falls prey to dementia as they plot to flee, and while Shark and the prostitute fall in love, while others fight for the many jewels found, he takes a rifle and kills Djin and Lizardi. Shark afterwards wipes him out and finally leaves with Maria.

In this film, Buñuel articulates the narrative structure in well differentiated parts, the first, with the supposedly civilized world, but in which at the same time violence and bullets reign; the second in which the jungle will take care of arising the most desperate side of the unfortunate, until they lose their calm, sanity, and eventually even life; and then lucidly returns, but at the same time, and hand in hand with that lucidity in some cases, their ambitions and malice, find salvage, food, and even superfluous well-being, jewels. But with the jewels it returns to them much of the evil in their humanity, an antagonism that seems to be an echo of the caressed in Robinson Crusoe, the return to the most basic of man, the questioning of the most elementary principles of civilization (although it does not get to the extreme of the solitude and total isolation of the aristocratic English adventurer, whose journey to the interior was much deeper). In one of the films where the filmmaker most vigorously portrays one of his affiliations, the political interest and to some extent with revolutionary guidelines, from the beginning of the film, promptly and immediately portrays a crude confrontation, a class confrontation that will become violent. The exploiters, in the form of the oppressive government, the military, against the exploited, the humble and hardworking diamond workers, who see their way of life, their modus vivendi and only source of income, abruptly cut off. Thus, one of the first things we see is violence, the violent shock of the beginning, the military repressing the workers, a clear variety of the traditional class clash, and the figure that immediately shows, after that confrontation, is allegorically a board of Chess. In the aspect of staging, some frames, some shots, although not in abundance, leave evidence of maturity, of the technical mastery that has been acquired by the director, already hardened, and who was already entering to full-color films; but, in the general analysis, this is a film in which surrealism shines by its absence (the only moment this is broken, is when a photo appears, car sounds flow, cars and lights, improbable picture that fades as the focus of the photo moves away), a linear, flat film, in which Buñuel rather explores other topics that draw his attention powerfully. The director recovers in that sense one of the themes that would permeate his guidelines in more than one film those years, the unbelievable created hell that human beings face, in space and situations that become minimal. Now, as in Robinson, there is a slow and gradual ruin and degradation, faced with an extreme situation, a voracious jungle that opens its threatening jaws, the subjects are prey to despair, old Castin being the most useless, the most defenseless.

In future there would be no going back, the new topic certainly fascinated Buñuel, probably started with the aforementioned Robinson, continued with That is the Dawn, and then would take this to its pinnacle, and in different variations, with The Exterminating Angel (1962). Being Buñuel a filmmaker with the temperament and obsessions he has, the entomologist is again notticed, that finds solace in what he shapes, with humans confronting unbelievable circumstances, bordering on the absurd and unreal, with the director leaning like an entomologist, curious and scientific, analyzing his test subjects, as if it was an experiment (being fair, for the filmmaker certainly it was). There was also another great change, Buñuel used after a long time, from his exile in Aztec lands, European actors, French actors after decades of separation, and although the filmmaker talks about the tortuous work with Simone Signoret and her diva poses, he tightened ties with Michel Piccoli, to whom great friendship would unite him. Although the film differs from other works more a la Buñuel, there are noticed anyway his obsession topics, like the never missing death, sempiternal threat in the form of the merciless jungle, although it is finally human dementia that ends with half of the group, it is Castin who is deranged and liquidates everybody; there is the relative newness now, the new obsession, a group of individuals, who over one or another circumstance, more or less realistic, with greater or lesser verisimilitude, are immersed in dementia situations, that will take their humanity to the limit, breaking every convention of life in a civilized world. The circumstances, from one case to another, from one film to another, will vary, and Buñuel now has the tact of separating from having to frame his story in a certain geographical space, he simply slides us that it is a South American country, which shares borders with Brazil. An always inescapable Buñuelian matter, religion of course, is not absent, another of the capital subjects in the filmography of the genius of Talanda, begins to prefigure variations that in later films would deal with much greater detail and freedom. This is based on Father Lizardi, an ambiguous figure, diametrically opposed to priests previously seen in Buñuel, as the father of He (1953), and to a certain extent hinted at the irreverent priest of The River and Death (1954), both so conventional -to put it in a way-, compared to what we could now call an indefinite priest, ambiguous in his attitude, always taking responsibility for others ("I answer for him", or "I take responsibility", we will hear him say), that unconsciously forms part of the oppressive side, which is overcome by circumstances, is already announcing what will be the father in Nazarín (1959).

Father Lizardi, from his first appearance, from his first words, is clearly outlining what character he is about, he wants to quell the revolt, "who kills iron, he dies iron," he says quietly but determinedly. The priest is a key character, who transits in a certain way, from one side to another, in that sense his evolution makes him one of the most interesting characters: although at the beginning he urged Castin to surrender and end with the killings and violence, afterwards collaborates to hide him, does not betray him, helps to hide him from the militia. He renounces his faith, symbolically pulls out the leaves of the bible to light the fire, has sacrificed his faith for the material, for survival, the flesh has prevailed over faith, is certainly the most attractive character, in which Buñuel seems to have poured the most of his curiosity and interest. Deliriously tells an anecdote about hard-boiled eggs, without anyone paying the least attention, an unrelated anecdote with what is lived, and, in my opinion, very probably an anecdote intimately linked to Buñuel himself; in the end significantly tells Shark that his opinion about him has changed. Shark is a kind of heretic, does not believe in God, does not kneel before the image of Christ in a chapel, but until, by force, with a rifle blow on his legs, they make him. And it is complemented at the end, when the boat arrives, saying "it's funny, 60 men had to die for God to save us" (Castin also adds something to this, when he is already a prey of the dementia, he is about to kill everyone, saying "the righteousness of God shall speak"). As always, in his characters, the filmmaker overturns human traits, the innocence of the mute girl, the restrained behavior of the prostitute, the naive old man, and that indecipherable priest, all make up what could be considered the totality of human nuances to the eyes of Buñuel. In the violent ending, after all the lived -and survived- Djin and Lizardi are killed by Castin, the strongest and weakest finally are the survivors, Shark and Maria, her innocence is what saves her, and in regard to that duality of the survivors, Buñuel affirms not knowing why that pair was the one that resisted in the end, "the nature does not act according to the human laws: it is blind", he says to us. The film unfolded at a momentous time in Buñuel, who was already well established in Mexico, who had achieved fame, notoriety and recognition, both public and critical, but to whom the doors of the Mexican film scene began to close. The great change was already beginning, the co-productions with Europe were a more than affordable way, it was becoming the only way forward, and the European producers began to look with longing on the young and promising Spanish filmmaker, who, more than a promise, was then already a reality, sensing that his great explosion was coming soon; it was the right time, the turning point in his career had come. Atypical and conjunctural, very Buñuel but at the same time different from his most traditional exercises, worthy and indispensable for the scholars of his work, a feature not of his better known, and recognized, but necessary for the global understanding of his oeuvre.