VIRIDIANA Movie Review

It was Luis Bunuel's intention that the first film he directed in Spain after his 23-year political exile be both significant and explosive. He succeeded. Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) is an innocent girl who is cajoled into visiting her wealthy and worldly uncle, Don Jaime (Fernando Rey) prior to taking her final vows as a nun. She goes to thank him for helping her with her financial problems through the years, but Don Jaime, it seems, has a few problems of his own. His wife died on their wedding night 30 years earlier, and Viridiana's resemblance to her has been bringing the already obsessed man close to the brink of madness. He drugs Viridiana's tea after beseeching her to try on his dead wife's wedding dress (Don Jaime does that himself from time to time); once she's unconscious on his bed, he gazes at her lasciviously, partially undresses her, but can't finally bring himself to violate her. The next morning, however, he informs Viridiana that she is no longer a virgin, following which he commits suicide. Viridiana and Jorge, Don Jaime's illegitimate son (Francisco Rabal), inherit the Don's estate, and they attempt to create a religious order of their own, inviting beggars, thieves, and derelicts to take shelter there. But these guests take advantage as well as shelter, and it's soon apparent that Buñuel's amazing Viridiana is far more than a mere entertainment. Although it isn't exactly the all-out attack on religion it's often described as (though it is filled with traditionally blasphemous imagery, including a contextually startling recreation of Leonardo's Last Supper), Viridiana is a double-barreled assault on the complacency of simple idealism when unaccompanied by action. Nevertheless, the picture was promptly banned by Franco, and just as promptly won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

NEXT STOP … Nazarin, Simon of the Desert, The Milky Way

1961 90m/B SP MX Silvia Pinal, Francesco Rabal, Fernando Rey, Margarita Lozano, Victoria Zinny; D: Luis Bunuel; W: Luis Bunuel, Julio Alajandro; C: Jose Agayo. Cannes Film Festival ‘61:Best Film. VHS NOS, HHT, DVT