Buñuel would continue his prolific stage in
Mexican lands with this film, a film in which he also continues to make clear the
experience he achieved, the shooting and dominion he had already acquired after
a few years shooting on Aztec soil. The filmmaker returns to work with his
scriptwriter Luis Alcoriza, to bring to the big screen a story in which himself
collaborated in the script, a crude story, full of pathos, and with which
Buñuel returns to his most recognizable and recurring cinematographic topics,
that for a moment had left aside in his previous film, A woman without love (1952). Buñuel did not exactly have the best
impression of this work of his, as often happened with his Mexican films,
lamented some changes that were imposed to him regarding his original desires,
but nevertheless he ends up configuring a very well achieved film, concise,
that may well not be among his loftiest creations, but it is an exercise worthy
of attention. It is the story of Bruto, a hard worker, very strong subject to
whom his employer orders to intimidate the tenants of the neighborhood he owns,
he wants to evict them, and they resist; the Brutus does it well, but when he
discovers love in a young girl, one of the tenants, everything gets
complicated, especially when he becomes entangled with the boss's wife.
Interesting film by the Spanish director, containing a lot to keep in mind.
The action unfolds in a neighborhood, with
humble dwellings, in one of them lives Meche (Rosa Arenas) with his father,
Carmelo González (Roberto Meyer), who one day are alarmed by a scandal in the
neighborhood, the owner of the site: Andrés Cabrera (Andrés Soler), wants to
sell the property, demands everybody to leave from there, generating conflict.
To silence the tenants, Andrés’s wife, Paloma (Katy Jurado), gives the idea of
looking for a thug guy to intimidate them. The one seeked is Pedro, nicknamed
El Bruto (Pedro Armendariz), for his great physical strength, his workman to
whom he orders to frighten the tenants, especially Carmelo, who leads the
neighbors. The Brutus sets in motion, and strikes the old man, with such bad
luck that Carmelo ends up dying. The neighbors, alerted, try to kill the
aggressor, but he escapes, and knows Meche, who helps him, ignoring he is the
murderer of his father. The Brutus also soon becomes entangled with Paloma,
intense adultery is consumed, which complicates everything when the woman learns
of the romance of the Brute with Meche, telling her without a doubt that he is
to blame for the death of her father. Paloma also lies to Andrés, accusing the
Brute of abusing her, demanding that he liquidates his workman, but in facing
him, finally the worker ends up killing him. In the end, the Brute has managed
to keep Meche's neighbors from being evicted, but will have a tragic ending.
Buñuel already shows the experience he has
acquired in Mexico with his filming, a filmmaker who proved his versatility,
his economy, and his rigor, and we can appreciate the characteristic Buñuelian kick-off,
the camera showing a close-up of a detail, then will get back and show us the larger
image; in this case, is first seen the frame of Meche with the dropper giving
medicines to his sick father, and then his humble dwelling in the neighborhood
owned by Andrés. Subsequently, as the best filmmakers always do, that is,
narrating without words, presents us with one of the keys of the film, Paloma,
who looks at herself in the mirror, who eats some grapes, sensually chews them
while watching her reflection, shows the teeth, as the beast that will prove to
be; in a few moments we already know that she is a carnal woman, and without
pronouncing a single monosyllable. In a similar way, the Brute is symbolically
presented, he works in a slaughterhouse, a slaughterhouse, according to the
brutality of his personality, carrying huge meats, animal corpses open in half,
thus delineating the character well, as was done with Paloma, although the
initial case was more exemplary. The deployment of the camera also shows us the
maturity in the office, the profession of director Buñuel has achieved, a
mobility of the camera that makes his film very cinematic, with subtle
travellings, approaches and departures that change us more than once the
perspective, and separate it from other filmic exercises that may have had a
flatter treatment, close to the theater, as, without going any further, it is
the case of the immediately preceding picture, the cited A woman without love. Technically, then, it is a work well done,
both for the handling of the camera and its ease, but also for the beautiful
photography, with those powerful dark shots that will be repeated, a sober
photograph that always beautifies a film. And it is no accident that, the
gloomy locations, dark images that always flow with the Brute as protagonist,
which complement each other, as externalizing the personality of the iron
subject, these obscure images will keep flowing, very noticeably photographed.
Always he in the dark, always the Brute moving around in a shady environment, either
at his initial home, or at the locations that Andres gives him, the darkness
always follows him, but let's not confuse, because here it borns another factor
that makes this feature so remarkable and appreciated for some critics.
And it is that our protagonist evolves, his
character, El Bruto, becomes complex, and so on the picture, which erroneously would
be cataloged as a drama like so many others, we find it difficult to judge him,
to declare him a villainous, to see him despicable and condemnable. We
empathize with the supposed villain, who falls in love, who dresses well, who
humanizes to us when learning that his hard heart harbors warm, tender
feelings, wants to change for her, wants to leave that world which ends up
devouring him; the rigidity of what would be a melodrama in all its senses is
broken, we have a complex character in the Brute of great strength but of
little intelligence, that contrast makes the character attractive, and seeing
him in the end approaching the fragile Meche, after having liquidated two
people, knowing that he is responsible for the death of her father, is almost
ridiculous, but tender, he says I will
return for you, because I love you very much, a desperate situation that
touches pathetism. In that sense, the feature is undeniably a dramatic film, it
is a drama, however much Buñuel regrets the final result and asserts that was
not his intention at the beginning of the shooting, and probably the imposed
changes to which the filmmaker referenced had something to do with that final
product. The film, by the way, was born from an idea of Alcoriza, with the
nucleus of the story, the tenants who face the landlord, in turn intimidated by
a very rough guy; one of the contributions of the filmmaker, who was initially
not in the plans, is the element of the owner's father, Andrés, an old man,
that some follies originates, constantly repeating "puñales"
(something like “damn”). Another recognizable Buñuelian detail is the treatment
of love sequences, always an enemy to show kisses the filmmaker, now, as well
as at Great Casino (1948), it was
Jorge Negrete moving the stick in oil, we see the meat that is cooked, burned, consuming,
obvious and very powerful and eloquent wink to the carnal idyll that in turn is
cooking. Katy tells Brutus to leave
the meat, let the flesh burn... As it was said, in this film Buñuel returns to
several of his whole-life- topics, beginning of course by the sexual subject,
the flesh, the lust, in the figure obviously of Paloma, carnal woman, intense,
fiery and fearsome like a beast, we will see again the games of glances,
glances full of libidine.
Also the figure of exchange of person returns,
Paloma, first indifferent in the bed before the kisses of her husband, after meeting
the Brute, begins already to burn of desire, and although it is Andrés who
kisses her, she has the Brute in her head, as it happened in Ascent to Heaven (1952), and Susana (1950), a figure practiced by the
surrealists, part of the amical and intellectual circle of the Aragonese; now,
the concept is the same, but without the exchange of faces, a warm wink to
another of his known resources. There could not be shortage of the animal
element, in the so buñuelian detail of the hen, that seems like a dense
nightmare, because certainly a nightmare is over, and that final shot with Katy
in front of the bird, is certainly another detail added to the Aragonese, and
is formidable, again without words, wordlessly, again surreal, an excellent
sequence, with no words and eloquently, almost disturbingly, she looks at it
strangely; Buñuel considered the hens as nightmarish animals, and he knew how
to capture it at the right time, and in the most effective way. The notorious
and famous Katy Jurado arises, a woman of iron temperament, fierce and
fearsome, legendary actress of character, is already leaving her imprint Jurado
(chilling to hear her screaming, "kill him”, "kill him”, unmindful,
intense and ruthless, once her lover fleed away, the possessive beast only
wants to destroy him), a personality of Mexican cinema, who has always shown
his strong humanity, beautiful, young and glowing, perfect for the role of the
carnal Paloma. Pedro Armendariz, another personality of Mexican cinema, also
plays a memorable role in the gross and in love worker, Buñuel had the right
guess and seductive power to have worked with referential actors in Mexico, and
always, with some exception, managed to direct them well. Buñuel recovered for
this film his topic of unfortunate people, very related to The young and the damned (1947), even for the name of the innocent,
Meche, in addition to focusing on unfortunate people, with pathetic dramas,
plagued by misery, violence, death, people trapped in their circumstances,
circumstances that devour them, a hell from which there is no escape, which
consumes their desperate tenants. Someone wanted to see in the film a political
milestone within the cinematography of the author, because he had never before
exposed so directly the clash of classes, patrons against workers in the figure
of the landlord and his tenants, while on the other hand there is the severe
feminine counterpoint, severe contrast, the pure and chaste Meche, against the
carnal, the dominant Paloma, pure carnality, demonic, ruthless, cutting the
stems of flowers, disposing of lives. A history of pathos and misery, extreme
situations, a solid drama, which although not completely convinced its author,
will be very appreciable for Buñuel's admirers.
