La mort en ce jardin

I love most of Bunuel's films but "Death In the Garden" is definitely my absolute favorite, ahead of "Los Olvidados," and even "Viridiana." For me, this is as close to perfection as you can get doing 'transcendent realist' or 'transcendent existentialist' cinema (although Bunuel has gotten tagged as a 'surrealist,' most of his '50s work actually has very little to do with that movement and style, and a couple of 'trippy' scenes here and there shouldn't automatically serve to qualify those films in the same boat as "The Exterminating Angel" or "Phantom of Liberty," etc.). To most critics, when they even bother to mention this great film in talking about Bunuel, this is nothing but a 'flawed' film, a commercial chore or 'assignment.' To that I'll have to say: "If only 1 out of a 100 commercial 'chores' ended up as fascinatingly timeless as "Death in the Garden," the cinema would go through a major cultural revival!" The 'flaws' in this film are further aspects of its pefection, if taken in the proper 'absurdist' perspective the film has toward 'reality.' It has its lunatic elements and a few supernatural angles like all Bunuel films, but it also showcases the 'romantic' side of the man too often labeled a pessimist. By 'romantic' I mean, he's managed to fit his auteurist obsessions within a colorful, picturesque film about amoral adventurers in the Amazon jungle who descend into 'the Heart of Darkness.' Also, for one thing, there is some twisted heroism, or 'anti-heroism' going on here. The completely 'amoral' yet not unadmirable Georges Marchal character "Shark" is the closest thing to an Yves Montand/Wages-of-Fear type tough-guy 'hero' Bunuel ever got.

On the surface "Death in the GArden" is a "Wages of Fear" like adventure story (Charles Vanel from Clouzot's masterpiece is one of the main characters) where a bunch of people are put under pressure and forced to work together and survive. The people putting the pressure on are the military fascists not the industrialist-fascists of "Wages of ear." The story happens in a South American state, where a bunch of Diamond miners are being chased out by the corrupt military government. When a small-scale civil war breaks out, the leaders of the rebels become hunted men, and they have to escape by boat, ending up in a rain-soaked amazon jungle trying to get to Brazil. The characters have to cooperate and survive under an increasingly hopeless situation and reveal fascinating aspects of themselves in the process. To incorporate Bunuel's anti-clerical satire, of course, one of them is a Nazarin-like priest, brilliantly portrayed by a very young Michel Piccoli. And like all Bunuel films, there are no moral black and whites to be found anywhere, no stereotypes, but only a dynamically evolving morality shaded in different grays leaning toward the black here, toward the white there, depending on the situation that's being dealt with. You come to have a deep level of sympathy with almost every rogue main character in the film, even Simone Signoret's avaricious Madame, but only after examining them as totally flawed human beings capable of many bizzare deeds, some admirable, others despicable, etc.

Like most of Bunuel's films, "Death in the Garden" gets its main tone , originality, relevance, and philosophical strength from the hilariously absurd farcical scenes that constantly frustrate the action (but not in a totally irrational way as in the later allegorical, surrealist films), a deep identification with religion in order to remain that much more strongly anticlerical, and a complete lack of sentimentality; unlike most other Bunuel, this one has ravishingly beautiful color cinematography (very lush and colorful, almost Renoir-like, Renoir being an obvious favorite of Bunuel's since he not only re-made "Diary of a Chambermaid," but used Zachary Scott from "The Southerner," as his lead actor in "The Young One," his, in some ways Southerner-like foray into and artistic, if not commercial, conquest of American Cinema). Oh yeah! Did I mention the beautiful young deaf girl whose long hair gets stuck in a tree?! What more could you want? This is definitely a MASTERPIECE film that should be transferred to a good DVD as soon as feasible. The Interama video copy uses a scratchy old print, is not letterboxed, and has readable but ugly subtitles; yet, the beauty of this film comes through even in that format.

I had seen nearly all of Bunuel's films, including his early "commercial" Mexican ones, but had actually never heard of this one before seeing it. This is really an extraordinary film! The great cast is just the beginning. It starts much like an "A" Western, with lines drawn between diamond miners and corrupt Mexican officials. Leading archetypical characters are introduced in a classic manner: the arrogant lone stranger with a distinctive cowboy hat; the old prospector who just wants to build a nest-egg so he can open a restaurant in Paris; his deaf-mute daughter; the cynical gal who does well by doing the best she can; and the naive priest. This last is, of course, a very Bunuelian character; his every good deed backfires on him, and his proselytizing is financed by big companies who find Christianized natives a cheap source of labor. The events have a classic cast and are filmed with great, stylish skill and action-film panache. But classic Bunuelian touches abound. An example: the soldiers who arrest the stranger on a trumped-up charge stop off at the church to pray, and brutally kick him to a kneeling position. The deaf-mute girl, who he had previously treated cruelly, happens to be kneeling next to him and strokes his face in compassion.

When a street battle goes badly, the lead characters all seek escape on a small steamer going up-river, and when a faster patrol boat catches up to them, they take off in the jungle on foot. At this point they quickly become lost. The pace perceptibly slows, and it becomes a film of another sort entirely. Finally, in a Bunuelian ironic ending, death comes to this strange garden. The kicker of the ending (which must have seemed much stronger in 1956) must have been in the original novel and is probably what attracted Bunuel to the story. The final scenes put one in mind of Herzog's later AGUIRRE; in fact, the whole second half of this film follows a path similar to AGUIRRE.

I am amazed that I can find no reference or commentary on this film in print, other than in checklists of Bunuel's work. I can only assume the film is caught in the classic Catch 22 of being unavailable because it is unknown and unknown because it is unavailable. It should be considered a major film in Bunuel's oeuvre! The comments of aw-komon-2, dbdumontiel, and UndeadMaster on this site are all right on the mark. This is definitely a film that cries for rerelease and reevaluation.

I haven't seen all Bunuel's filmography yet, but I can say this one is pretty different from others I saw as "Un Chien Andalou", "L'Age d'Or",... They were completely surrealistic, whereas this one is a much more traditional movie - at least in the coherence of time/space/story.

The story : It starts somewhere in South America, during the '50s, in a village near mines of diamonds. An insurrection begins as the military governement set there decide to close the mines. After a few fights and chasings, an old minor ( Charles Vanel ), his deaf daughter, the prostitute he loves, a monk ( Michel Piccoli ) and a bad boy called 'Shark' manage to escape together with a stolen boat. Hunted by soldiers, they decide to cross the jungle in order to reach Brazil, which will reserve them some more surprises. The ending is a bit sad, but on the whole we end up with a good movie of adventures.

At first, I haven't recognized Bunuel's style here but truth is his personal visions of Religion, Society, (...) are also within.

A good movie to watch 'with all the family' filled with action, love, adventures,... but merely different from the early Bunuels ( no Salvador Dali here ).

8/10

Underseen Bunuel movie starring Simone Signoret and Michel Piccoli, among others. These two, playing a prostitute and a priest respectively, are joined by Charles Vanel, Georges Marchal and Michele Girardon as a group of people in South America trying to escape an oppressive government. Marchal and Vanel, both diamond miners, are two men taken as revolutionaries by those in charge. The first half of the movie is about their getting into trouble, and their attempt to find a way out of the country. The second, and more interesting half takes place in the jungle, where the group gets stranded during their escape attempt. Many of Bunuel's pet themes come up, and there's a lot of his signature visual trademarks. The most potent image is that of a python Marchal kills with a machete, thrown down to the ground while they try to start the fire. Piccoli looks over at it and its corpse is writhing with fire ants. It's a pretty good story, very gripping in its latter half. It may not rank alongside Bunuel's best, but it's certainly a worthy film in his canon.

Bunuel doing an adventure movie is fine in my book. Why do people have to be such snobs when it comes to pigeonholing directors? Some of the films Bunuel made during this period, he may have been personally disappointed because he might have rather been making pix with subject matter more of his choosing. Nevertheless the things that Bunuel brings to this movie - the subtle deadpan humor throughout, the irreverent politics, the surreal touches (especially in the last third of the film when our fugitive protagonists are in the jungle) -- make this a gem.

Plus Georges Marchal, Charles Vanel and Michel Piccoli are stupendous. And Signoret is in a class by herself. Not only was she one of the most stunningly gorgeous and sexy actresses in movies anywhere in the world in the 1950s, she was also a great actress and perfect here as the unrepentant, mercenary whore who falls in love. The last jungle sequence has some of the most beautifully surreal images in any film from the decade. The new DVD is highly recommended. A really perfect balance of elements.