El río y la muerte

I had first watched this in January 2007 as part of the Bunuel retrospective held at London's National Film Theatre. Incidentally, being the closest the Spanish Surrealist master ever came to the traditional Western formula, I was also surprised by the fact that the narrative (dealing as it does with a long-running blood feud) pretty much duplicated that of a historical book about the Old West my twin brother and I had intended adapting as a script years before I ever came across the Bunuel picture! Obviously, his intentions here were far from paying tribute to that most American of film genres but rather (avid gun collector that he was) to tackle the age-old Mexican tradition of defending one's honor through gunplay! Actually, Bunuel himself had dismissed the film as a failure but, now that I have re-acquainted myself with it, I feel I must contradict him and maintain that this devotee of the Western found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable excursion.

One of the things that really make the film is its depiction of various religious customs (or, more precisely, the peculiar rituals at their center) such as those involving the processions of a village patron saint and a funeral interrupted by numerous reverent pauses; this element is as much a part of Mexican folklore (a remnant of Spanish Colonialism) as it is of my own country (the European island of Malta). Other reverent situations that come under fire here are baptism (one such celebration being suddenly interrupted by the cold-blooded knifing - in full view of the guests - which kick-starts the narrative!), motherhood (a woman has to bear one humiliation after another because of her 'spineless' crippled son) and sickness (the latter being himself 'attacked' by his current nemesis when most vulnerable i.e. undergoing treatment inside an 'iron lung' at the hospital!).

The film's lack of a proper reputation may have something to do with the fact that the cast is largely made up of unfamiliar faces; the only name that stood out for me was that of Jaime Fernandez - if only because he had played Friday in Bunuel's own ROBINSON CRUSOE (1952). That said, though it was obviously made on a tight budget, THE RIVER AND DEATH still managed to receive three nods at that year's Ariel Awards, the Mexican equivalent of the Oscar - for Cinematography, Sound and Music (even emerging victorious in the latter category!). That said, it was submitted to the Venice Film Festival (in favor of the much superior CRUSOE, whose release had been delayed for two years) without success. Anyway, the movie under review has an atypically complex narrative structure for a genre film: the aforementioned opening sequence, for instance, is set neither in the present nor in the flashback (taking in several generations of casualties in the deep-seated enmity between the two central families) which occupies much of the running-time but actually falls somewhere in between!

Bunuel shows up the feud as trivial, yet the participants take it with the utmost seriousness: even the Parish Priest cannot afford to go around without a gun! Yet, they have the decency (if not the common sense to see it all the way through) to attend the interment of an eminent citizen who had tried his best to act as mediator between the parties concerned; this is preceded by a beautifully done sequence in which the two enemies follow one another at a distance on their way to town but, eventually, meet up to share a few words and some cigarettes! Still, the director quashes expectations here too - in this case of Latin American machismo - by making the hero of the modern part of the story altruistic, thus a conscientious objector (rather than a coward, as would have been the obvious Hollywood route)...not to mention a polio survivor! The latter eventually provokes his hot-headed antagonist into shooting him in the back, after which he defiantly splashes the other's face with blood from his wounded hand.

The whole, then, culminates in a rushed and unconvincing – if admittedly poignant – happy ending that was apparently forced on Bunuel by the author of the novel on which the film was based! In conclusion, the title (sometimes also referred to as DEATH AND THE RIVER) is very fitting since the river here actually symbolizes death: the killer crosses it to go in perpetual hiding (interestingly, each faction has its own exclusive haven on the other side!), while the victim is carried by canoe to be buried.

A small town by the shore of a deep, dark river is ruled by death. Its people live by a code of honor that encourages them to take revenge for any form of insult, no matter how insignificant. A seemingly never ending blood feud ravages the town, as the men, one by one, kill each other proudly, embracing their acts of murder with a sense of mission. Vengeance is considered not so much a crime as an act of courage. However, if a murderer manages to escape without being killed in return, he's banished from the town and left with no option but to cross the river and to live on the desolate, opposite shore. The dead are also taken across the river, inside their coffin, and buried in a distant cemetery. Few are those who oppose this violent way of life and little is what they can do about it. Gerardo, a young man of modern thought who studied medicine in the nearest big city, must return to his hometown and try to put an end to this delirious, anachronistic, macho gun culture.

The story and the dialogues are great, and so is the acting! Like in much of Buñuel's other work, a terrible, dreamlike beauty emerges as man's passions and ignorant values devour virtue. In this case, sin appears not so much in the form of lust but of a ferocious sense of vanity (disguised as "honor").

Though quite surreal in essence, the film feels more mainstream than the director's work from later decades. The humor here, though clearly present in the absurdity of the situation, is relatively restrained, and the music is at times a little bit campy. The story itself is linear and fairly straight-forward. The ending is perhaps the only small disappointment, not so much because it's so atypical for a Buñuel film, but because it's so sudden.

The black and white photography is very decent, although the image quality of the DVD that I watched was a little bit deteriorated. It would be a real treat to watch an enhanced version.

I hardly doubt that anyone considers this one of Buñuel's unique masterpieces, but it's still a great, extremely enjoyable film with a strong message and, personally, I highly recommend watching it.

I saw this one last night, just knowing that is considered a minor work in Buñuel's career, and I have to disagree because being an old movie with a relative plane plot, it kept me really interested from beginning to end so I had to watch it completely, considering that I was really tired last night ...

The story about the town, the river, the traditions of the people who lived there, the constant fights between the Anguianos and the Menchacas, are quite thrilling and charming on a certain point of view If you're looking for strange situations, surprises, surrealism, plot twists, black humor (excepting the priest with the gun) and absurdity, you may be disappointed by this film I love Buñuel films, and I fully enjoyed this one

Again Bunuel delivers a grand movie, that is top notch, from beginning to the end. While exploring more human faults, as in his other movies I have watched at the Berlin Film Festival, he digs deep inside the homo sapiens and shows us our flaws, while the characters don't really understand that they're acting irrational. And even if they do try to swerve from this "circle", it seems inevitable that they fall back into it.

Great acting and a great story get mixed together with a nice framing by Bunuel, who understands how he can use the medium film, to portray human stories, that do touch us (as in this case). Some might feel, that the pacing could've been a bit faster, but I do think that it is better this way. Slow but steady into ... Watch it and you won't be disappointed!

In this film ,the great director pits an obsolete world (the vendetta , eye for an eye , tooth for a tooth ) against the modern scientific background of a son who is expected to avenge his father ;the contrast between the urban background where the young doctor is to work and the archaic and macho village is striking ;that two worlds can still cohabit may seem startling ,even in the fifties ; this is not typically Mexican ; in some Mediterranean regions (Sicily,Corsica ) it endured through the early twentieth century.

With a genius such the director, one has a tendency to show oneself demanding ; but his touch can be felt no and then: the depiction of the "tradition" recalls the documentary side of "los hurdes" :the survivor swimming across the river ,some kind of Styx which is some frontier between the living and the dead ,filmed in the darkest night , the black coffin of his victim on the boat ; the painting is almost surrealist ;so are the skeletons at the beginning .

In his highly superior "Viridiana" (1961) ,Bunuel would resume the obsolete/modern subject .While the heroine ,steeped in piety ,entertains all the bums of the village, her cousin, a pragmatic resolute man ,develops his estate .