Luis Buñuel: main films and stages of the genius of Spanish cinema

Luis Buñuel has been one of the most peculiar filmmakers on the film scene. His filmic language and his way of understanding cinema have served as a reference for great directors throughout history.

In almost all the filmography of the Aragonese director you can see traits of his personality. His cinema speaks of a nonconformist person with his time and very critical of conventions bourgeois and religious, which even led him to leave his native country and fight against the censorship of the moment.

His work aims to open the eyes of a conformist viewer, undermining the established social order and putting issues such as society, the family, in the spotlight. religion, the bourgeoisie or politics, all this without missing allusions to the world of dreams and the inner world of the individual, themes that have always been obsessed.

There is no doubt that Luis Buñuel's cinema marked a great stage in the history of cinema. The director used cinematographic art as a kind of canvas on which he captured all the concerns that occurred in his inner world.

Buñuel did something that very few filmmakers of the time could achieve: make later generations will inherit the cinema from him and, despite the passage of time, that he manages to continue stirring consciences and making reflect.

1. Surreal stage

In the mid-1920s, Buñuel went to Paris. There he shares ideas with different artists of the time and, unintentionally, maintains his first contact with the surrealist current when he meets André Breton.

Later, he became part of the surrealist group, with whom he sympathized and brought the current to its maximum expression in the cinematographic medium with the film An Andalusian dog (1929).

An Andalusian dog (1929)

It's about your debut as a director he wrote alongside Salvador Dalí. It is considered one of the greatest surrealist works in the history of cinema. In 1929, it premiered in Paris at the Study of the Ursulines and caused a great controversy for the critics of the time.

It is a film that invites the viewer to enter the world of dreams, leaving reality aside. It goes beyond where our senses or our reason guide us. Unreality reigns, opening the door to an illogical narrative. What makes it open to different interpretations.

From the first moment, the film is already shocking. A man (Buñuel) appears on a balcony sharpening a razor and, next, it is seen how he cuts a woman's eye. It is one of the most famous scenes in the film.

From this moment on, the film is immersed in an authentic game of shots that, although apparently they do not mean anything, they manage to generate sensations in the viewer thanks to a magnificent mounting.

In most cases, it uses it chained together. A prominent example is when ants emerge from the rider's hand and suddenly turn into a woman's armpit hair and then a hedgehog.

It also breaks with linearity thanks to the incoherent use of intertitles that, rather than guiding the viewer, mislead: "Once upon a time", "Eight years later", "Towards three in the morning", "Sixteen years before" and "In spring".

Over the years, different interpretations of the film have been drawn, although none are totally accurate. Buñuel himself described it:

The film is nothing more than a public appeal to assassination.

The reality is that, although he never explained the reason for this film, there are underlying elements that will maintain throughout his career, such as his obsession with death, the world of dreams, and the subconscious.

However, even though any analysis of the film may be valid, An Andalusian dog tries to leave a mark on the receiver so that when he remembers the film he does not try to find any plot, but rather tries to describe the emotions he has experienced during his viewing.

The Golden Age (1930)

At the beginning of the 1930s, Buñuel premiered his second surrealist film, this time with sound and French language. It is a groundbreaking and unique work that was financed by Viscount de Noailles, a member of the aristocracy. The launch of the film brought with it the scandal and the prohibition of its projection by the French government.

In it, Buñuel reveals a critique of the customs and traditions of the bourgeois society of the time. The director himself described the film as:

The sexual instinct and the sense of death form the essence of this film. It is a romantic film made with surreal frenzy.

It is the struggle of two lovers to continue their passionate love in a society dominated by rules. There is no doubt that the film is an exaltation of crazy love, absolutely free and is, above all, a complaint against all those factors that interrupt its development, generally the conventions of society bourgeois.

The narrative, which begins with a documentary about the life of scorpions, draws attention from the first moment. Perhaps the inclusion of images recorded in 1912 are not accidental, if we take into account that Buñuel lived obsessed with insects.

Later, some criminals try to escape from their cabin while a group of bishops perform a kind of ritual in front of the sea and finally they appear dead on the beach.

A group of people arrive in a boat to venerate the soul of the bishops. The ceremony is interrupted by the noise of lovers, a man and a woman, who are giving free rein to their love on the beach. The man is finally arrested.

From that moment on, the film revolves around the woman, who lives in a wealthy house and tries to fulfill her sexual desires in the face of the impediment of the society that surrounds her.

The most critical analysis of him comes with the insertion of shots that have remained for the memory of the spectators. For example, the image of the mummified bishops, the protagonist sucking the big toe of a statue or a cow perched on an elegant bourgeois bed.

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2. Stage of the Second Spanish Republic

The scandal caused by Golden age, makes Holywood realize that Buñuel could be "a gold mine" for the film industry. That is why, in 1931, he crossed the Atlantic attracted by an offer from Metro Goldwyn Mayer. They intend to introduce it into the cinematographic system there; However, the different mockery and rudeness of Buñuel towards high positions in the industry bring him back to Spain.

Land without bread (1933)

Shortly after his return, he shoots the documentary Land without bread with the money from a lottery prize. It aims to reflect the life of Las Hurdes (Extremadura), where the situation was truly dramatic, although Buñuel exaggerates it a bit more.

The film shows images of the area as a voice-over he is commenting on what appears in them. It begins with a situation infographic, in which a map of Europe appears and gradually approaches in zoom and points out the exact point that she is going to talk about. While a voice narrates:

In some parts of Europe there are foci of almost Paleolithic civilization. In Spain, 100 km from Salamanca, a place of high culture, Las Hurdes are isolated from the world by mountains of difficult access (...)

The film is like Buñuel's own walk through the area, the viewer sees what his eyes see. He tries to teach the life of the people there in a "neutral" way. It shows poverty, disease, children and malnutrition.

The exaggerated tone of the narrator is striking when describing what he sees, sometimes suspicious of being real. A clear example is when he describes a woman with goiter who, according to the narrator, is 32 years old, although it seems incredible.

What Buñuel intends with this film is to provoke even to put a population in the spotlight who lives in miserable conditions, despite being close to evolved places and cultured.

On the other hand, the director wants to make known the most rural and retrograde Spain of the time, at a time of supposed development, forgotten by politicians and leaders.

Also, it shows the hypocrisy of the Church, when comparing a Christian place in which the peasants live in deteriorated houses against the wealth that it possesses.

Finally, the Republican government banned the film, considering that it gave a bad image of Spain. However, this did not prevent Buñuel from later marketing it across borders.

3. Stage of exile: Mexico

With the start of the Civil War, Buñuel, who had remained faithful to the Republican side, had to go into exile. He first he migrates to France, where he resides for a time, and then he goes back to Hollywood. After a period in North America, he traveled to Mexico with the intention of filming a film adaptation of the work. Bernarda Alba's house de Lorca and, although it was not finally done, he decided to settle there.

It is in 1949, in Mexico, when he decides to resume his career as a film director, which he had left stagnant with the start of the war. In this period some of the most important films of Buñuel's filmography are shot. Among them are:

The forgotten (1950)

In this film the director once again reveals his concern for social problems. As with the documentary Land without bread, He begins by highlighting that under the shadow of the wealth of large cities are the poorest and most disadvantaged areas.

This time, instead of setting his eyes on his country of origin, he reflects on the slums of Mexico City. And he returns to focus attention on the most vulnerable population: children.

The plot revolves around Jaibo, a teenager who escapes from a reformatory and returns to his neighborhood. Days later he commits a murder in front of his friend Pedro, a boy who tries to be good. From that event, Jaibo leads Pedro astray and his destinies are truncated.

This film is a hymn to harsh reality. The cruelty with which issues such as machismo and alcoholism present in the society that he reflects is surprising.

On the other hand, the vision that children have about school is remarkable, for them it is like a punishment. When Pedro goes to school to learn a trade, he thinks that he will lose his freedom, equating the school to a jail.

He also reveals the ignorance of the population, which remains attached to popular beliefs. For example, a woman who is ill thinks that she is going to be cured by a pigeon.

The filmmaker also does not miss the opportunity to investigate the world of dreams and does so through the character of Pedro. The slowing technique that he uses to describe the child's dream world, where he shows the character's concerns, is striking.

What Buñuel and Luis Alcoza, scriptwriters of the film, intend to show in this narrative is the hypocrisy that exists between the two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, the evolution and wealth of the center of a large city, with a well-off population. On the other, a poor periphery in which crime, poverty and involution prevail, problems that remain in the shadows of the political system.

With a full stomach we are all better.

The reaction after the premiere of the film in Mexico City was not at all friendly. She although she later she obtained recognition at the Cannes Film Festival and was named Memory of the world by Unesco.

He (1952)

It is a film shot in 1952 based on the homonymous book by the Spanish writer Mercedes Pinto. It tells the story of Francisco, a man of high birth who is obsessed with getting the love of Gloria, the girlfriend of his friend.

Eventually, the lovers end up getting married and their marriage turns into hell due to the protagonist's jealousy and obsessions.

In this melodrama, two fundamental ingredients also appear in Buñuel's films: the church and high society. It is in an ecclesiastical environment where the narration begins, during the celebration of Holy Thursday. There the protagonists are going to meet, both of the well-to-do class.

Soon one of the fundamental concepts that will gain prominence during the viewing of the film appears: paranoia. As if it were a study on a rational animal, the director "dissects" the mind of the main character. And it is that, as spectators, we are witnesses of " Francisco's journey "towards delirium through subjective reality and the search for his own perception of reality.

You can also see confusion between the concepts of love and obsession. There is a clear submission on the part of Gloria towards her husband at first, even a kind of "toxic tolerance" towards her behavior.

Little by little, Francisco begins to believe that everything that happens goes against him and thinks that his wife he is unfaithful to any man who approaches him, even going so far as to abuse her physically and psychologically.

On the other hand, it can be observed how the society of the time justifies this behavior on the part of the man towards the woman when Francisco manipulates his mother-in-law and the priest with her delusions. These imply that the young woman has to satisfy the whims of her husband. The priest even goes so far as to cross out his behavior as "light."

Buñuel also does not leave aside his obsession with animals that, although they do not appear explicitly, They do it through the protagonist's speech while he is up on the tower of the Bell tower. In it he equates humans with worms.

He perhaps it is one of the most personal films of the director's filmography or at least that is how he has shown it on occasion, assuring that "perhaps it is the film where I have put the most. There is something of me in the protagonist. "

It is, without a doubt, a critique of the mentality of the society of the time, based on conventions and beliefs rooted in religious ideas. A film that, although it did not have as much impact as other films by the director, does not leave anyone indifferent.

Essay of a crime (1955)

Essay of a crime it is also an adaptation of a novel, this time by the Mexican writer Rodolfo Usigli. This story, in the key of black humor, revolves around the character of Archibaldo, a spoiled child descended from a wealthy family, who lives obsessed with a musical box belonging to his mother.

His governess tells her a story related to the box, in which she confesses that it has the power to grant wishes. In this way, the child wishes that his nanny dies and she is the victim of a shot.

From that moment on, everything that happens to Archibaldo, as an adult, will revolve around that event, since he thinks that his wishes have been granted by the box and he pleads guilty, before a judge, of the wave of crimes that supposedly he himself has unchained.

The film begins by contextualizing the story in the Mexican Revolution as a voice-over, that of the adult protagonist, describes his childhood and how, since an event that occurred at that time, his life has been conditioned ever since. At that moment he presents us with the catalyst element of the story: the music box.

This object will trigger a change in his life as a child, with the murder of his nanny, and later as an adult when he retrieves the box from an antique shop. It's interesting how their sound is going to string together events from the past and present.

The use of a circular structure makes the film start from a scene, when Archibaldo is confessing the alleged crimes of him before a judge after the death of a nun, and return to it near the end of the movie. The rest of the story is told through flashbacks.

The role played by the character's imagination is fundamental, the fine line that exists between desire of the protagonist and the coincidence of the events, which finally lead to a "story of crazy ".

Archibaldo points out the object as the culprit for awakening his criminal instinct until, finally, he disposes of the box by throwing it in a lake, as if in this way he got rid of his psychopathy.

As in other films of this Buñuelian period, a harsh criticism is made of bourgeois society, almost all the characters are related to this social class, and also towards the Church.

Viridiana (1962)

Based on the novel Halma by Galdós, this film was a truce to Buñuel's exile. Although it is a Spanish-Mexican co-production, the director traveled to his native country to shoot it.

She eventually earned harsh criticism from the Vatican, who called her blasphemous, and the Franco regime banned her for fifteen years in Spain.

The film tells the story of Viridiana, a novice who leaves the convent to visit her uncle, Don Jaime, a wealthy landowner.

Soon the man tries to rape the young woman, fantasizing about the great resemblance they have with his deceased wife.

Although she, she finally repents and does not carry out the act, she ends up committing suicide prisoner of her conscience.

After this event, Viridiana inherits the property of her uncle and, although she does not return to the convent, she decides to preach good by welcoming a group of beggars in her house. But her charity ends up leading him to evil.

On some occasion Buñuel himself referred to the main character as:

Viridiana is a kind of Quixote with a skirt.

In a way, we can see Viridiana as a weak and passive character who, at the beginning of the film, moves based on the decisions of others. But, little by little, the protagonist evolves according to the events that happen to her and she finally becomes a more mature and less influential character.

Once again the church is an element to judge in this film. Throughout it, different representations of the ecclesiastical world appear. The maximum representation is given by the hand of Viridiana, a potential nun and believer. Other religious elements that appear are: the crown of spikes and a crucifix-shaped knife. Although perhaps one of the most significant moments is when trying to clone the painting of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci.

This work by Buñuel also highlights the improvement in photographic aesthetics. With respect to previous films, the images of this one are cleaner and more careful.

Viridiana it was not just another director's movie. Although it was a failed attempt to re-shoot in his land and a subject of harsh criticism, it was also one of the director's most revered films by becoming the winner of the Golden palm at the Cannes Film Festival.

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The exterminating angel (1962)

After a brief period in Spain, Buñuel returns to Mexico to continue shooting films. In 1962 he premiered The exterminating angel, in which he again investigates bourgeois life.

The plot revolves around a meeting of the upper bourgeoisie held in the luxurious mansion of the Nóbile couple. After a long dinner, when it is time to go home, the guests discover that, for unknown reasons, they cannot leave the room. There they spend several days and the situation goes from a luxurious dinner to a fight for survival.

Surrealism reigns supreme in this film in which the viewer, like the characters, wonders: why can't they leave the house?

Nobody knows, neither the viewer nor the characters. The catalyst element that raises suspicions about what may have happened is the sudden flight of the servants from the Nóbile mansion. However, the mystery will never be discovered.

Most of the speech takes place in the same location, which makes the viewer feel that he has lost the notion of time if not for the dialogues, the change in appearance of the characters, or the clock that appears in the background in counted occasions.

An anti-bourgeois reading can be extracted from the film, it shows the true face of the well-to-do class.

At the beginning of the story, when the party begins, everyone hides behind a facade of hypocrisy and has insubstantial conversations among themselves but, as if in a reality show In question, little by little each one of them is showing her personality.

It is discovered that when they are subjected to an "extreme" situation, they are still animals with an instinct for survival. It is then when they strip themselves of ornaments and riches to show that they are no more than anyone.

4. Last stage: France

The last phase of his film career takes place in France. There he moved and had more resources and means to record some of the works that led him to the top of the seventh art.

Beautiful by day (1967)

Beautiful by day It is based on the novel Belle de Jour 1928 by writer Joseph Kessel. It involves a clear but subtle critique of contemporary high society, where the surrealism typical of Buñuelian cinema is once again recovered.

The story tells the life of Séverine, a young girl who is married to a doctor and who is unable to have relationships due to childhood trauma. That is why he decides to transform himself for a few hours into Belle de Jourher, a prostitute, and secretly lead a double life although, eventually, she is discovered by a friend of her husband's.

A young Catherine Deneuve plays Séverine, an ambiguous and distant character with whom she turns out difficult to empathize, who lives in a bourgeois environment in which the coldness of relationships is shown personal. One day he decides to leave that "boring life" to become, for a few hours, another woman in a whorehouse.

Through the protagonist, Buñuel again investigates the world of fantasy through scenes that are part of the world imaginary of the character, although it raises doubts in the viewer about whether they are real or not, between what is fantasy or reality. It's funny how almost always in Séverine's fantasies she is humiliated by her husband.

On the other hand, the theme dealt with in the film involves the uncovering of many taboo subjects at the time, such as prostitution, in this case taken to the terrain of high society. Although he treats it in a very subtle way.

It is possibly one of the director's most technically careful films, taking into account the color treatment in photography and the use of attractive frames. The aesthetics of the film denotes the cinematographic maturity of the filmmaker in his last stage.

Despite the controversy that the film's daring theme generated, it led to it winning the Golden lion at the Venice Film Festival.

The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie (1972)

The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie It is one of Buñuel's last films and the one that led him to be the first Spanish director to win the Oscar in the category of best foreign film.

In it he returns, to have the French bourgeoisie as a backdrop. Moving between comedy and absurdity, the plot revolves around six characters, three couples, who, for different reasons, see their intentions to go to dinner truncated.

This innovative and groundbreaking film at the time could perfectly have the attribute of "timeless", since its argument could be extrapolated to the present, it continues to impact the viewer nowadays.

Just like in the movie The exterminating angel, makes an X-ray of the bourgeoisie as a whole. He portrays it as a social class that always tries to maintain form, elegance and good manners, even in the most absurd situations.

It is a fun film in which it does not focus attention on a single character, but rather opens the way to an ambiguous choral role and without the evolution of individuals.

The group protagonism is also reflected in the technique, which justifies the scarce use of close-ups, giving prominence to broader frames in which the actors themselves develop a magnificent "choreography" within of the same.

Nor does Buñuel leave behind the world of dreams and the difficulty of distinguishing between the dream world and the real one. He takes risks and goes further, even presenting dreams within another dream.

This cinematographic jewel, bathed in irony and satire, leaves the door open to the viewer to get different interpretations, and the viewing of it leaves no one indifferent.

Brief biography of Luis Buñuel

Luis Buñuel was a Spanish filmmaker born in February 1900 in a small Aragonese town. There he spent his childhood and later moved to Zaragoza where he studied with his brothers in religious schools.

When he studied high school he discovered the book The origin of species (1859) by Darwin, which led him to change his conception of religion. At this stage, his interest in entomology also arose, which, together with the religious fact, became one of his great obsessions and will condition his cinematographic work.

In 1917 he moved to Madrid with the idea of ​​studying Agricultural Engineering, although he finally did not manage to access the faculty. In the capital, he lives in "The Student Residence", Krausista center, where he meets some of the most prominent avant-garde artists of the time, the so-called The generation of 27: Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Rafael Alberti, Federico García Lorca and Salvador Dalí, with whom he maintained a close friendship.

He spent seven years in the student center and changed studies on different occasions, finally enrolling in Philosophy and Letters. His period in the capital conditioned his career since, thanks to his interest in the avant-garde, he forged the foundations that would explain his way of understanding cinema.

Complete filmography of Buñuel

• An Andalusian dog, 1929
• The Golden Age, 1930
• Las Hurdes, 1933
• Grand Casino, 1947
• The great Skull, 1949
• The forgotten, 1950
• Suzanne, 1951
• The daughter of deception, 1951
• A woman without love, 1952
• Ascent to heaven, 1952
• The brute, 1953
• He, 1953
• Illusion travels by tram, 1954
• Robinson crusoe, 1954
• Essay of a crime, 1955
• The river and death, 1955
• This is aurora, 1956
• Death in the garden, 1956
• Nazarin, 1959
• The ambitious, 1959
• The young, 1960
• Viridiana, 1961
• The exterminating angel, 1962
• Diary of a waitress, 1964
• Simon of the desert, 1965
• Beautiful by day, 1967
• The milky way, 1969
• Tristana, 1970
• The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie, 1972
• The ghost of freedom, 1974
• That dark object of desire, 1977