A film from Luis Bunuel's twenty year period of making films in Mexico. Introduced by Sam Price, honors program '99, who will conduct a discussion of the film after the screening as well.
Return
to Film Studio.
Dennis Harvey, San Francisco Bay Guardian, May 20, 1998 provides an introduction to the possible film to be shown:
'Buñuel in Mexico,'
'Nazarin'
Thurs/21, Yerba Buena
Center for the Arts
SAN FRANCISCO Cinematheque's four-part
"FilmStories: Filmmakers on Film" series
continues with Buñuel in Mexico, an hour-long
documentary by France's Emilio Maillé that
intrigued me more than ever about Luis Buñuel's
prolific two-decade Mexican period. It was
interesting to see that his first
post-Eurofascist-flight features there were baldly
commercial necessities (flop musical and hit
comedy, respectively). Subsequent to Los
olvidados, which is satisfyingly dwelt on here --
including rediscovered footage of an "alternative"
happy ending -- Buñuel made 18 further Mexican
titles, yet remained a controversial, always
perilously funded figure in this very Catholic land.
Too few of those films are given much
screen-time shrift (obvious ones like Viridiana and
Simon of the Desert being exceptions). Why he
left in 1965 is also left unexplored -- did Mexico
no longer want him, as implied here? Or was it
because Europe by then was ready to give him
carte blanche? There are enjoyable interviews
with surviving actors (most of whom confess to
finding him cold) and others. Even if the expatriate
artiste himself emerges just cagily -- perhaps as
he'd have liked -- Buñuel in Mexico is a
fascinating insight into a major artist's neglected
career midstretch between better-chronicled eras.
It's followed by Buñuel's '58 Nazarin, a relentless
portrait of a would-be saintly priest and how
poorly his efforts serve a very real-world
constituency.
See also: http://www.metroactive.com/movies/reviews/belle.html