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.

Susana (1951) - Luis Buñuel

Fourth film in Mexican lands of the enormous Aragonese filmmaker Luis Buñuel, a work in certain aspects atypical, but that continues carrying many of the main directives of a director who had already assimilated the form to make cinema in Aztec lands, but that was in uncertainty on the results of his great work, the previous year Los Olvidados (The Young and the Damned), which was not yet released. Without working on this occasion with the famous Alcoriza scriptwriter spouses, the director draws a story that is based on a story by Manuel Reachi, about the disturbing adventures of an attractive young woman, of dark and uncertain past, whose severe addiction to carnality will make her seducing successively every man who crosses his path, powerfully altering the harmony that reigned in the home where, ignorant of the past and the inclinations of the girl, she was received. Many times cataloged as inferior work, minor work within the filmography of the giant Spanish director, I consider that the picture has many positive aspects, while the filmmaker managed to impregnate his film with a very personal seal, returning to work with Fernando Soler, as he did in El Gran Calavera (The Great Madcap (1949)). The actress selected to give life to Susana is Rosita Quintana, certainly an imposition, being the wife of one of the producers. A very interesting work of the Iberian artist.

             


The story begins in a stormy night, in a reformatory, where a young woman, an attractive woman who is being held there, escapes. Then we see a family, they all live with calm and happiness, the landowner Don Guadalupe (Soler), his wife Doña Carmen (Matilde Palou), and his son Alberto (Luis López Somoza). In the middle of the night, the fugitive girl appears, she is Susana (Quintana), in the middle of the storm is welcomed by the family. The next day, he meets everyone, the maid, Felisa (Maria Gentil Arcos), from the beginning suspicious with the young woman, and the principal servant, Jesus (Victor Manuel Mendoza), who immediately focuses all his attention on the newly arrival. Soon the girl begins to arouse restlessness in all the men of the house, in the own Jesus, in Don Guadalupe, but it is with the young Alberto with whom finally a kiss is consummated. Don Guadalupe is the one who most resists her charms, although his desire for her gradually grows, to the point of firing and bouncing Jesus off the house after discovering him trying to force Susana. Finally everything explodes, Don Guadalupe loses his head for Susana, the girl rebels completely against Doña Carmen, challenges her, under the protection of the landowner, even disposed to throw his wife and son out of home, but Jesus appears, who, knowing more than one truth about Susana, will put an end to the already unsustainable drama.










Once the film is finished, you can see how Buñuel portrays his economic filmmaking when he immediately presents his intention: after a beginning showing a very calm and little clear sky, that tranquility and calm get broken, a storm starts, there are thunders; with that strong break we are introduced to the protagonist. There will be a double fracture, since the family harmony is immediately destroyed, destroyed by the carnal Susana, just as that peaceful sky is interrupted by thunder and storm. The presentation is eloquent, eloquent and forceful, as we see her at first struggling with the workers of the reformatory, spitting them, as they lead her to her cell by force, where dark beasts await, a bat, rats, scorpions, a huge tarantula, dark creatures of a gloomy and subterranean world. That is her environment, so Susana is presented to us, she is put on the level of these creatures, the underworld, the dark, marginal beings, evil beings, she herself puts on the level of these animals, is compared with them, ask for freedom to God, comparing with a viper, a comparison that already says enough. She is an animal that moves among shadows -as when finally seducing Don Guadalupe, her mayor achievement, her mayor seduction- in the middle of the shadows, she smiles, her face and her smile are the only things that escapes from the darkness. But there is something so disturbing as to be attractive in Susana, she is a complex personage, she shows a singular duality, she prays, she entrusts herself to God, in her own way of course, comparing with the viper and her right to freedom, almost rebuking that she has been created that way; she is conscious of her being, of her inclinations, and she is not afraid, she embraces her nature, represents the cursed caste (like The Young and the Damned), who rebel to the system, to the established order, and she rebels through her indomitable carnal desire. Just as quickly a whole flow begins: she, still in a pitiful state, soaked with rain, muddy, messed up, even in this situation, is already arousing the libido of men, the glances of Jesus and Don Guadalupe already begin to show lust, traversing her flesh, her legs, Susana is pure desire and carnality. Her personality is promptly shown, she calls mother to Doña Carmen, she is a being who knows perfectly what she does, is manipulative, with a complete lack of innocence, is a dual, amoral being, and Buñuel accurately shows us her dual procedure.

Pure desire, pure lust, pure carnality, one of the of all-life-themes in Buñuel, but this time that desire is consumed, repeatedly, without stopping, now we will see a kind of continuation of Modot of The golden age (1930), and a feminine variant of the Jaibo, but in this opportunity there will be no stop, at least until that final so abrupt and that did not respond to a complete will of Buñuel. Buñuel finally get to give free rein to one of his great themes, the carnal desire, because if in Un Chien Andalou (1929), or in The golden age, the crazy love, the amour fou, flows vigorously but finding obstacles in every corner and every instant, there is no one who represses that desire, which is now completely consumed, in the figure of her, all that desire reaches its maximum expression, is all that it can be. She is everything, she is the center, she is the engine of all actions, manipulating all men and women, and managing men as puppets, she is a demon who controls everything, as Felisa affirmed, according to her presentation, with her face translucent through the window in the gloomy, stormy night. She deeply disrupts everything and everyone, she makes the studious and conservative son rebuke his father, even raise his hand; she achieves that the foreman almost rebbele to the employer, she makes that every single man wishes her for his own, and for no one else, thus we see the caporal prohibiting her to the labourers, and the employer in turn prohibiting her to the caporal and to his son; but the greatest triumph of Susana is that the devout and conservative mother gets carried away by fury and jealousy, with that delicious sequence of Doña Carmen finally whipping Susana, with a disturbing smile while flagellating the lust that once hosted as a daughter, in her own house. Everything becomes a hive just about of exploding, as it eventually happens, full of tension, the sharp tension will finally explode. The ending however is something that Buñuel did not want in that way to one hundred percent, a subject forced in the interviews on this film, because the obligation of censorship finally arrives, the repression, Susana is surprisingly trapped again, and the calm will return to the home. That end is so miraculous and violent that every change aroused by her exit is translated into forceful consequences, birds sing, there is light, there is life, sick mare is rehabilitated, and even gets a foal calf, the symbolism is full, new life arises after the hell lived; the devil, as Felisa said, has come out of their lives. "I am sorry that I did not emphasize the caricature at the end, when everything ends miraculously well. An unintended viewer can take this outcome seriously", Buñuel tells us, which shows the nature of that resolution.















And that end is no coincidence, in this film the allegories and symbolisms are reduced, in exchange for conventions, more frontal representations probably still product of the uncertainty of the filmmaker in those lands, because as it was said, his then more personal work, the formidable The Young and the Damned, was not yet released, and the situation of the director was really uncertain. Thus, the Aragonese had to adapt his style and script to the conventions of Mexican filmmaking, and although this correction of the script on the march was not a novelty on the Aztec soil for the filmmaker, it influenced the ways, and the end. Buñuel thus intentionally reveals his own symbolism -Susana compares herself directly to the viper-, breaks its symbolism by making it obvious, declaring it directly, this is because Buñuel deliberately sought to align with conventional canons, make a linear picture, his surrealism evolves in a way, something consistent with his Mexican stage. Something vital in the Buñuelian cinema are the creatures, the beasts that in the films are presented, Buñuel's bestiary does not stop growing with each film, now we will see Don Guadalupe and his beloved horses, Alberto and his insects, his Dragonfly, and Jesus, compared obviously with a rooster, archetype of charro, tough and virile Mexican, with the huge hat he never leaves. There is an evident sordid bestiary, the companion beasts of Susana, but in turn and to a large extent, Susana will become the desired animal for each one, becomes the object of desire materialized, in the insects of Alberto, in the equine of Don Guadalupe, to whom the veterinarian says his love for horses resembles the love for women, and is thus symbolized in the mare-Susana. It is peculiar, on one hand Don Guadalupe sees her, Susana, and then passionately kisses his wife, a moment of warm surreal wink, because he sees his wife, but he has the other in the head, a figure commonly represented by that current. Curious treatment given to the brief sequence in which the family prays, dark and full of shadows, in one of the most attractive visuals within the film, unfortunately short, but for the connoisseur of the Buñuelian work, is worthy of attention. The rhythm of the film is one of the best that has been seen in the features of Buñuel, this partly achieved because his sequence-shots, watchword of this Buñuelian stage, streamline the narration, chain everything to give a concise and agile rhythm, more fluency in the story, what the filmmaker liked, and that makes the little more than 80 minutes of footage pass quickly and easily. Similarly, it is very interesting and attractive how not only the characters and the story grow as minutes go by, but also the audiovisual language, in the form of the camera, the visual narration also changes, the camera stops behaving statically, to show a greater capacity to almost seek the protagonists, a dynamism that is perfectly coupled with the drama and tension that grow geometrically. It is curious that in this film Buñuel has to do something of what he was always enemy, that is, to show kisses on screen, something that always eluded within the possible, but in this picture they are shown more frequently probably than in any other of his films. The seductions are part of the movie, and the filmmaker finally shows, albeit with some modesty, the different kisses that successively is getting Susana. We are facing a film often branded as a minor, but within that "inferiority", the director has managed to capture a very personal work, which contains much of what a Luis Buñuel cinema lover seeks in a film.