Él

In Mexico, the wealthy, religious and leery middle-aged Francisco Galván (Arturo de Córdova) is battling in the justice to retrieve the possession of real-estates that belonged to his ancestors in the beginning of the Twentieth Century. When he sees the young Gloria Milalta (Delia Garcés) in the church, he becomes obsessed by the woman, unsuccessfully courting and stalking her. He follows her and sees Gloria with her fiancé and his acquaintance, the engineer Raul Conde, having lunch in a restaurant. Francisco schedules a ball in his mansion and invites Raul and along the night, he seduces Gloria. They get married and in the honeymoon, Gloria discovers that Francisco is virgin and has a sick jealousy for her. Along the years, the emotionally unbalanced Francisco oscillates between a passionate husband and a disturbed paranoid until the day Gloria leaves him and he has a mental breakdown.

"El" is a very simple and melodramatic film of Luis Buñuel about sick jealousy and paranoia. The plot shows the usual trademark of this great director, with religious element and the surrealistic paranoia of the lead character in the church, but is not original like most of his features. Arturo de Córdova and Delia Garcés have stunning performances, giving credibility to their characters. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Alucinado" ("The Hallucinated One")

This tale of a pathologically jealous husband, whose delusions of cuckoldry teeter over the edge into madness, ranks with BELLE DE JOUR and the early surrealist films as the first rank of the Bunuel canon. The ending, which has audiences screaming out loud in a mixture of gruesome delight and horror, would probably drive Brian DePalma to death by alcohol if he saw it. Brian, don't watch, okay?

This was the first film I decided to watch from director Luis Bunuel and I had no idea what to expect from EL going into it, but it really intrigued me in different ways -- not only with the general story, but also in the visual style with which it was realized. There were surprises at every turn, and the acting by the leading man Arturo de Cordova was superb. What began as a pretty standard-looking (though nicely photographed) soap opera wound up transforming into a striking melodrama with some oddly disturbing moments. I don't know how indicative this one movie is of Luis Bunuel's general approach, but if the others are anywhere near as interesting, I look forward to trying them out. He seems ahead of his time, judging by this film.

*** out of ****

Made in 1952, between "Robinson Crusoe" and "Wuthering Heights," this may not be one of Bunuel's major films, but it contains several of his key themes and recurring images, starting with the ceremonial washing and kissing of feet. The film also goes into the politics of submission and domination, the effects of long-term sexual repression, and -- of course -- sewing.

Bunuel understood obsession and was able to convey it on screen like no other director. As irrational as his characters can get (and Francisco gets plenty irrational in this film), Bunuel knows that we all have our hangups which seem normal to us, no matter how grotesque they may look to an outside viewer. (There's a reason why the alternate title for this film is "This Strange Passion.")

One of Bunuel's best films, and certainly the finest of his lesser-known work. An intense, gripping study of a man who goes from merely asshole to outright insane, perhaps driven just a bit by his fondness for feet (the film's alternate title is "This Strange Passion"). In a powerhouse performance by Arturo de Cordova, Francisco is jealous, irrational, impulsive, self-centered, paranoid, delusional, megalomaniacal, misanthropic and sadistic. Bunuel leaves it up to the viewer to imagine what he's doing to Julia as we hear her tormented screams echo through the mansion... or what he has in mind when he sneaks into her room with a rope, a razor blade and a pair of scissors. Bunuel isn't known for flashy cinematography, but he always knows exactly where to place the camera, and the film's visual style gets more and more noir-ish as Francisco descends deeper into his obsessive madness. There's a subversive quality and almost a black comedy to it, like a Wyler melodrama with a perverted twist. The film begins and ends in a church, a symbol of sexual repression and false ideals, and the brilliant final shot suggests how much it feeds into Francisco's psychosis.