Nazarín

about faith as only manner to live. about the struggle to be Christian. all in the web of Bunuel's cruel and subtle irony. a remarkable film for the image of a way. for the crumbs from Don Quixote. for the science to explore social expectations and the self protection of many. grace full, courageous, cruel, cold, the same Bunuel who looking the decomposition of illusions. a man. and two woman. Mexican villages. the message. the sacrifice. and the shadow of doubt. it is more than a religious film. like each film of Bunuel, it represents perfect support for reflection. about life, people and faith's expressions. about ideal. and about its high price. nothing new, at the first sigh. but useful. for define yourself.

In his films about morality and the church such as Viridiana, director Luis Bunuel has attacked the self-deception of those whose "pure" Christianity comes into conflict with the demands of society. In the masterful 1958 film Nazarin, Father Nazario (Francisco Rabal), a Catholic Priest, tries to imitate Christ by living a life of self-denial. He surrounds himself with prostitutes, beggars, thieves, and dwarfs and freely shares his meager resources with others but finds that his actions only produce distressing results. Based on the novel by Benito Perez Galdos, the film is about a gentle but sanctimonious priest in rural Mexico in 1900.

Naively unconcerned with his own best interests, he provides refuge to Andara (Rita Macedo), a prostitute who has just killed another street girl in a knife fight. When he also befriends Andara's sister Beatriz (Marga Lopez), suspicions arise among his superiors about his behavior. Forced to leave the church, he remains steadfast in his beliefs, going on the road dressed as a peasant and begging for alms. The sister's soon join him as disciples in his saintly pilgrimage after a dying girl regains her health as a result of his prayers. Nazarin's best intentions prove fruitless, however. He agrees to work on a road crew for food but in so doing creates a labor dispute that leads to violence. His guidance is again rejected when he volunteers to help a woman dying of the plague, asking her to picture what Heaven looks like. In spite of the priest's equation of sexual desire with sin, all she wants is one more visit from her husband and lover. Arrested and thrown into prison with Andara, Nazarin's life becomes more and more Christ-like in its agony. He is beaten by a thug and begins to question his faith when he is unable to forgive his assailant.

Is Father Nazario an impractical fool trying to live by unrealistic ideals, or is he a modern-day Christ, sentenced by a soulless world to endure a similar fate? Bunuel sends us mixed messages. He attacks the hypocrisy of the church for not living up to the teachings of Christ and seems to admire the priest for his rebellion against accepted social norms. Yet ultimately Nazario is just a sad and forlorn human being. Condemned by the church as a "nonconforming rebel", scorned by a society that does not understand his passion, he carries his "crown of thorns" to an uncertain end, perhaps realizing at last that his self-satisfied idealism did not include understanding the true nature of his humanity.

Nazarin is some kind of saint,he wants to live in life exactly how Christ taught man to do.But it's too late:now the Catholic Church is in the hands of a wealthy bourgeoisie,the bishops live in luxury and don't give a damn about the poor and the sick.That's why our hero can't follow the way his hierarchy asks him to follow.So he divests himself of everything,and on his way to purity,he's joined by some kind of Mary Magdelene and a woman who's attracted by him sexually (the scene between this girl and her fiancé is telling).In Spain (it was the late fifties),they thought Nazarin was a Christian movie!Knowing Luis Bunuel,it was downright incongruous:all his work is anticlerical to a fault.Comparing Nazarin and his "holy women" to Jesus is a nonsense.On Nazarin's way,only brambles and couch grass grow.His attempt at helping working men on the road is a failure,he's chased out as a strike-breaker.All his words amount to nothing.At the end of the journey,he's arrested and offered a pineapple by a woman(Bunuelian sexual symbol). Thanks to "Nazarin" ,Bunuel was allowed to return to Spain (where the censors had not got a clue ) and to direct "Viridiana".

Spanish director Luis Buñuel career spanned almost 50 years, from 1929 to 1977. Arguably, his best films were those he made during his exile in Mexico - from the late forties to the early 60s. There he had to deal with very cheap budgets, and work in an industry interested mainly in churning commercial movies to unsophisticated audiences, yet he somehow managed to make interesting, thought provoking movies that have stand the test of time. This movie is based on a novel by Spanish author Benito Perez Galdos - and the adaptation is quite faithful, even if the setting is now early 20th century Mexico instead of early 20th century Spain. The protagonist, Nazarin, is a priest who tries to live a life that is as faithful as it can be to the one prescribed by Christ. The question many would ask is whether such endeavor would be possible, without incurring in the hostility, incomprehension and mockery of your fellow human beings. As it happens, he suffers a lot of indignities, yet he remains stubborn (until the controversial final shot) to this objective. I think Buñuel wanted to show Nazarin as a somewhat ridiculous figure, but perhaps inadvertently, his stubbornness (at least to this viewer) comes out as admirable. In any case, a great film.

When you look at Mexico's best movies you will more than likely find that the Photography was performed by Gabriel Figueroa. He is recognized in the world as one of the best that have ever existed. His master control of the cameras gave an added asset to the movies he was part of. If added to his participation we add the direction of Luis Bunuel, you will never find such a pair of aces anywhere else in the world. This story, Nazarin, was written by Spain's greatest writer besides Miguel de Cervantes(Don Quijote de la Mancha). The story in itself is superb: Nazarin a priest that lives by his beliefs tries to live a very Christian life, but as always there are people that do not accept this. He wanders through many places preaching his Christianity but finding, most of the time, people that do not accept him. But besides the splendid story, it is always interesting to try to interpret the enigmatic messages that Bunuel sends us throughout the picture in scenes that make you shiver.