Viridiana, one of the most contentious and thought provoking films of Luis Bunuel, earned him Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. Viridiana is a sacrilegious outburst against Catholicism as well as against the Spanish bourgeoisie; it is an indictment of organized religion. The Spanish censors changed the ending of the film (instead of the heroine going to her cousin's bedroom, the censored version show her playing cards with him), still Viridiana remained banned in Spain and later on in Italy through the efforts of the Vatican.In this film, Viridiana, a young and beautiful nun (about to be inducted as one) is big way bitten by reality two times, both of which change her decision making and outlook completely. Persuaded by Mother superior, she visits her uncle Don Jaime, in his country estate for a few days. Don Jaime had a different project attached with it. He wants Viridiana to stay in his country estate for ever, as a wife. When Viridiana first time comes to know about this, she seems stunned and terribly upset (first reality bite). She decides to leave. A desperate Don Jaime with the help of his obedient servant Ramona, drug Viridiana's coffee. Don Jaime kisses Viridiana when she lay unconscious and tells her next day that he has had intercourse, hoping that this would force Viridiana to stay with him. But it doesn't stop her. She leaves anyway. Being ashamed, Don hangs himself. Viridiana comes back to the estate. She learns that she has inherited the farm house and Jorge, Don's son, inherited the main.Viridiana decides not to go back to the church. Instead, she takes up the project of really helping out the poor and the cripples by providing them food and shelter. She brings them to the farm house. The beggars turn out to be an unpleasant and evil lot who take advantage of her virtuousness and pay back her Christian unselfish charity with ingratitude. One of them even tries to rape her (second reality bite). In the end Viridiana leaves her ambitious journey of sainthood. According to Bunuel, it is better off returning to the secular world as a disgraced woman than living a lie as a hypocritical Christian who is disconnected from the masses. Well, Viridiana ends connected, doesn't she?Viridiana has striking similarities with films like Nazarin and Tristana, but I think in Viridiana, Bunuel was wittier, sharper and definitely most uncompromising. One can talk about several things. Think how he establishes Don Jaime's leg fetish for example, or when the little girl first time touches the thorn crown, she gets hurt. This thorn crown as well as nails and the cross are some of the things that Viridiana carries with herself, she worships them. I mean, I have seen them before, but after seeing Viridiana I realized that these fetish objects are dangerous things to carry also. Think about the famous dinner sequence, when one women beggar opens her skirt to take their group photograph. In this sequence, Bunuel caricatures both The Last Supper and The Hallelujah Chorus, and then follows the attempt to rape, which results in Viridiana's complete loss of faith. Viridiana is probably the most blasphemous of all Bunuel films.

With having earlier this year seen Luis Bunuel's interesting,surrealist first film (co-directed with Salvador Dali) L'Age D'or,I became very interested in taking a look at a second Bunuel film,when a I noticed a friend mention that they had been interested in seeing a Bunuel movie that involved the optimistic,helpful ideas of a nun being completely torn into shreds.The plot:Prepairing to at last take her vows to officially become a nun,Viridana receives an unexpected invitation from her uncle ( Don Jaime-who is also her only surviving relative) to go and pay a visit to him.Feeling uneasy about accepting her father's offer,Viridana is convinced by her mother superior that accepting Jaime's (who has also help with funding her training) offer would be a good deed.Arriving to Jaime's farm,Viridana discovers that Don lives a reclusive life in a run down farm with a few,worryingly loyal servants.Attempting to stay true to her values,Viridana begins to fear for her life,when Jaime tells her that she reminds him of his deceased wife,who died on their wedding night.Using a number of manipulative ways to increase her sympathies towards him,Don eventually gets Viridana to dress up in his wife's wedding gown.Astonashied by Viridana looking exactly like his wife on their wedding night,Jaime decides to ignore Viridana's angelic pleas,and begins to think about "reliving" the only night that he ever had with his wife,and also of permanently tainting Viridana's innocents.View on the film:Whilst co-writer/ (along with Julio Alejandro) director Luis Bunuel takes a surprisingly restrained approach to the surrealist moments in the film, (with a sharp reenactment of "The Last Supper" and the use of an unsettling song at the end being the two best,and most disturbing surreal moments in the movie) Bunuel display an impressive focus in fully showing the decayed world that Viridana (played by a very cute Silvia Pinal) finds herself enclosed by,with Bunuel using a number of well handled tracking shots to show the rusting world slowly taking the angelic shine off the innocent Viridana permanently.For their adaptation of Benito Perez Galdos's novel Halma,Bunuel and Alejandro show a brilliant take no prisoners approach to all of the character's featured in the film.Making Viridana be someone who sticks to their beliefs with all their might,Bunuel and Alejandro peel away all of Viridana's sheen with a fantastically harsh relish,that goes from her desperately trying to make her uncle happy,to a group of "poor,defenceless" beggars who she does everything to help,completely crushing her so that they can chew and spit out Viridana to the world,as a dead,empty shell.

I love Buñuel. In fact I consider his other two movies of his "Silvia Pinal" trilogy masterpieces ("The Exterminating Angel" is among my favorite movies of all times) not to mention the fantastic "Un Chien Andalou". Now I don't mind a movie with a anti-religious message despite of being a very religious person myself (heck, I enjoy things like "South Park", "Life of Brian" or as mentioned other of Buñuel movies), however I find some points Buñuel tries to make to shown how flaw Christianity in "Viridiana" delivered in a pretty poor manner."Ow, look she tries to help out some people because the bible tell her to do so but they get drunk and try to rape here so this must mean's Christianity is wrong" Seriously, what kind of argument is this? It has a much sense as making a movie about an atheist who at the end gets hit by a truck and having creator at the end jump out and yell "See? See? This is why atheism is wrong" Im sorry Mr. Buñuel, I love you but that's barley a reasonable argument (if not childish) and I find the scene of burning Jesus crown (depsite of very strong symbolism) in a pretty poor taste. It's still a very interesting and well put together movie to watch, even if not good as some other of Buñuel's work. In fact I think Christians need movies like that since thy argue for Satan but overall I just don't find it among Buñuel's best!

Regardless of the inhibitions that it may engender, it's always a matter of great cachet and honor to review the work of a virtuoso like Luis Buñuel. Calling Buñuel merely a movie-maker would not only be an understatement but also an invidious remark. Buñuel was a pioneer in every sense of the word and his works avant garde and highly influential. He is regarded as the father of surrealism in cinema and his predilection for the morbid and the obscure had earned him the tag of a 'fetishist'. Buñuel's directorial debut, Un Chien Andalou, a prototypical work on Surrealism, is a living example of Buñuel's vision and imaginative genius as a movie-maker and more importantly as a student of cinema. Buñuel was averse to explaining or promoting his work and ironically his surrealist works are so personal, distinctive and elaborative in style and manner that no one but Buñuel was worthy of judging or explaining them. Fortunately for me the first Buñuel movie that I have ventured to review does not deal with surrealism. Viridinia is a story of a young nun whose inexorable resolve for redemption ironically takes her to the brink of moral corruption. Viridinia revolves around bourgeois (middle class) modus vivendi and deals with controversial themes of gluttony, blasphemy and adultery which have been an integral part of Buñuelesque oeuvre. Buñuel was a staunch maverick and fittingly his iconoclastic works relentlessly flouted the bourgeois morals and the very root cause of bourgeoisie plight - the conservatism and hypocrisy camouflaged in the preaching of Catholicism and Christianity. Viridiana not only stands equal to the task of mocking organized religion and hypocrisies associated with it but just like other Buñuel works also manages to bring in a humanistic element with a somber yet sensual touch. The questions that Buñuel manages to pose through Viridiana are so straight and naked that even a saint of divine proportions, or a champion of human rights will not only look askance in want of candor but will also be forced to squeal in ghastly terror while trying to answer them. Such was the impact of Viridiana on the The Roman Catholic Church that the Vatican's official newspaper published an article calling Viridiana an insult to Catholicism and Christianity. The movie was banned in Spain and all its prints were destroyed as per the orders of the Spanish autocrat, Francisco Franco. These exaggerated responses were clearly not responsive of the subject material that Viridiana showcased but were the mere consequences of the questions it posed and the answers that it demanded.Viridiana is a young nun on the verge of taking her final vows. She is asked by her Mother Superior to pay a visit to her estranged uncle, Don Jaime, who has repeatedly expressed his keenness to meet Viridiana. She remembers that her uncle was never there for her whenever she had needed his support. Despite the absence of an emotional urge, she decides to pay him a visit simply out of courtesy. Don Jamie is a recluse rotting in the abject solitude of widowhood, which is making him more vulnerable and desperate with each passing day. Upon meeting his nubile niece, he notices a striking resemblance to his deceased wife. This ray of hope reinvigorates a new sense of purpose in his life as he decides to put forth a marriage proposal in front of Viridiana. He implores her to wear his wife's wedding dress which she reluctantly obliges. When his maid, Ramona informs Viridiana of his intent to marry her, she is appalled, and Don Jaime appears to have dropped the idea. However, Ramona secretly drugs Viridiana drink and Don Jamie carries the unconscious Viridiana to her room with the intention of raping her, but falls short of doing the ignominious. The next morning, he bluffs that he has made her his, and hence she is no longer pure enough to return to the convent. Seeing her undeterred, he concedes the truth, but fails in convincing her fully. Viridiana immediately leaves for the convent but at the bus stop the authorities reveal her that Don Jamie has committed suicide and has left his entire property to her and his illegitimate son, Jorge. Deeply disturbed, Viridiana decides not to return to the convent. Instead, as an act of penance, she brings home an assemblage of beggars and devotes herself to the moral education and feeding of this underprivileged lot. The things become a bit more complicated on the arrival of Jorge who shows a strong inclination for Viridiana. What ensues is a series of amazingly bizarre yet poetic sequences which can best be cherished through viewing rather than description. The penultimate scene depicts the beggars posing for a photo sans camera around the table in which they seem to collectively resemble the figures in Da Vinci's Last Supper; a chair substitutes for the door which now cuts into the fresco, and removes Christ's feet. This scene, in particular, earned the film the Vatican's opprobrium. The controversial finale adds a completely different dimension to Viridiana elevating it to new levels of cognitive interpretation. In a nutshell, Viridiana is a truly fascinating cinematic experience catapulted to new heights of magnificence by Buñuel's mastery and his unflinching ability to depict the sad and abysmal reality of living under the influence of false and misconstrued religious tenets. Viridiana along with The Diary of a Chamber Maid (1964) are great means of acquainting oneself with Buñuel's oeuvre and can serve as an excellent mock exercise to prepare oneself before exploring Buñuel's exceedingly challenging surrealistic works. 10/10http://www.apotpourriofvestiges.com/