Luis Bunuel: Playing God

This is the third and final part of my old undergraduate essay on the subject of Luis Bunuel’s auteurism. I should take this opportunity to highlight that I am well aware that Bunuel’s name has been incorrectly spelled throughout – I blame my computer, which does not want to let me access the appropriate accents.

III. ACTS

While the previous post focused predominantly on Bunuel’s control over filmic reality (either by taking on the role of God within the fiction, or shamelessly placing characters in ‘unnatural’ situations), the films discussed in this post demonstrate a central component of this control – one which harkens back to the films discussed in the first post – that is, the notion of time and space and their somewhat mercurial nature in cinema.

Both of the themes that were central to Nazarin and The Exterminating Angel, namely outright manipulation by Bunuel-the-God and the concerns with faith and religion, are found succinctly demonstrated and explored in Simon Of The Desert, Bunuel’s last Mexican film. With a runtime of less than 50 minutes, the film’s brevity and wit often undermine it multifaceted themes and fascinating ideas.

The film’s premise is almost like a sequence from Monty Python’s Life Of Brian; Simon (Claudio Brook) is a saintly hermit in what appears to be the earliest days of the Christian faith, revered by the locals as a miracle-worker and pious Holy Man, he spends his time standing atop a huge pillar, praying up to the heavens for the sake of the sinful mankind. At the film’s opening, the priests show their appreciation of Simon by presenting him with an even taller pillar to stand on. But this is the beginning of a sequence of events where Simon finds himself confronted with the temptations and abuses of a distinctly Bunuellian Father of Lies.

The film does not simply present a narrative of religion and faith, as Nazarin does, but rather presents an entire cosmology, complete with Devil and God. While in the other film, we must argue for the existence of God within the otherwise realist story, in Simon Of The Desert the existence of God is clear; miracles occur with sledgehammer subtlety – hands grow back from stumps in front of a crowd of hundreds. However, with these miracles comes a level of acceptance not found in the previous post’s films. The return of the man’s hands is met with the same enthusiasm as a magician’s trick, and both participant and onlookers are quick to carry on with their lives as if nothing unbelievable has happened. Within the diegesis, God’s existence is so certain it is taken completely for granted.

The film’s most interesting character is clearly the Devil. Played by Silvia Pinal, the lord of Hell here is earthy rather than evil, espouses views synonymous with Bunuel on religion as a cause of repression and, as an extension, destructive perversion. He/She is a shapeshifter, appearing in a variety of guises, from Edwardian schoolgirls, naked crones and even a highly unconvincing Jesus Christ. The Devil takes full advantage of the tricks of editing and framing – appearing behind Simon while he looks at her elsewhere off-screen.

 

 

Indeed, Pinal’s character can be seen as the embodiment of Bunuel’s personality incarnated within the diegesis. Equipped, it seems, with her knowledge that everything around her is taking place within a film, the character is a direct link between Bunuel-the-God and the characters of Bunuel’s fiction.

Simon himself, too, is a fascinating character. Much like Nazario, he is a man whose faith is pure but, in actuality, also quite useless. He stands atop his pillar, praying for the world and waiting for God to finally receive him; a vivid visual representation of the faithful’s alienation from the real world. Unlike Nazario, for whom this uselessness becomes a revelation, Simon remains oblivious to simple human nature. His inability to understand the concept of ownership, seems to be presented as ridiculous but also, perhaps, somewhat charming. Bunuel’s ultimate treatment of Simon is in many ways better than his treatment of the Mexican priest; he is allowed to remain in ignorant bliss, his faith never particularly wavering, even in the face of modernity.

The film’s finale sees Simon whisked away by the Devil to a 1960s nightclub. Simon is now dressed in modern garb, complete with beatnik-like haircut, while the Devil sits next to him, moving her body to the music. The brief moment with the two at the table drinking is perhaps the most complex in the film. Simon appears more bored than anything by his surroundings and – through the simple gesture of lighting the Devil’s cigarette – has clearly developed a certain tolerance for his companion. Though there is no clear indication that the Devil has ‘won’; Simon has not been sucked into some lifestyle of debauchery nor is he horrified by his predicament. Despite a mild interest in the name of the dance (‘Radioactive Flesh’) he is perfectly happy to return to his pillar unchanged by the experience. Here – as with Exterminating Angel – we have an example of the characters being allowed to remain ‘pure’, Nazario, the dinner guests, and Simon are not changed directly by Bunuel, only by the circumstances that he has concocted or, in the case of Simon, are not changed at all. Simon’s choice to retain his faith despite all he as been through is in sharp contrast to Nazarin, where faith in humanity is presented as a far greater force.

The common, and most obvious, interpretation of the ending is that the Devil has brought Simon forward in time in order that he might see out the last days. However, given the apparent significance of the Devil’s relationship to Bunuel and the ease with which Simon believes he can return home (as if it is another space rather than time), it might be reasonable to surmise that in fact the Devil has pulled out of the diegesis and into the real world, the world of Bunuel. Thus the diegesis can be succinctly viewed as a construct, a created reality within the world which we inhabit and therefore subject to the rules fashioned by its creator. Space and time, then, are only as consistent as deemed necessary for the telling of the story.

But Bunuel’s greatest juggling act of space and time can be found in his theological epic The Milky Way; though only 90 minutes, the average length of his films, it seems considerably longer, its absence of cause-and-effect logic destroys any frame of reference that an audience might have for gauging the length of the ‘story’ (such as it is).

Like a series of sketches, or more accurately parables, the film unfolds at its own pace, following the incidents that occur to two tramps on their way to Santiago, on a pilgrimage of sorts. These incidents demonstrate a multitude of theological views and counter-views, highlighting above all the contrast between genuine faith (which the director has lightly mocked in other films but never outright condemned) and the crimes against humanity for which orthodox religion can be responsible. Much like an extension of Simon Of The Desert, the film plays with diegetic reality as much as with time and space – there are no clear-cut definitions between fantasy, reality, past, present, future, fiction or flashback.

Within the first few minutes of the film we are presented with this scene (and I'm not entirely confident about this video working here... if not, I'll just have to post it separately later):

This sequence, barely a few minutes long, is packed with so much ambiguity and controversy that it could constitute an essay in itself. Structured in the form of a traditional flashback; the cut to the female figure that bears a resemblance to the Virgin Mary and a young man we therefore take to be Jesus followed by a return to the two tramps would imply that the Jesus-figure is Pierre, the older tramp, in his younger years. The dialogue in the two scenes reinforces this interpretation.

In itself, this creates a complex relationship – Pierre is presented as Jesus, just as Jesus is presented (via the act of sharpening a razorblade) as Bunuel; a holy trinity of character, director and God is created. But the complexity continues beyond this. As the film progresses, we learn that the figures that we have seen are in fact Jesus and Mary. A conversation between staff members at a restaurant is punctuated with examples; one waiter suggests that Jesus must have run and laughed like anyone, and the film cuts to Jesus running to meet his disciples. Subsequent appearances by both Jesus and Mary also firmly place them within the same cinematic time and space as the other characters, thereby forcing us to reappraise the moment above not as a flashback but as a cross-cut, a juxtaposition of two separate actions occurring within the same cinematic timeframe.

But this interpretation also fails as, after uttering the words “Wise woman, your mother”, the two tramps come across a boy sat at the side of the road. He is dressed in a blue shirt and shorts and has drops of blood on his palm, chest and across his forehead. These stigmatic wounds clearly relate this child to Christ and we might interpret that the film is going to be full of different figures who represent different aspects of Jesus (later in the film the two come across a ‘shepherd who talks like a priest’). But even this fails to hold up, as the child is the same boy whose face had been washed by Mary moments before – simultaneously undermining the possibility that he is the Jesus figure or that the previous scene had been occurring ‘at the same time’ as the tramps’ conversation.

The simple cut has rendered any hope of narrative space/time causality utterly null and void. This will continue throughout the rest of the film. Historical eras blend into each other without characters batting an eyelid; the two tramps settle down for the night but can here the noises of a ceremonial orgy taking place a few metres away in broad daylight; a priest advises a young couple about celibacy from both outside and inside their bedroom; characters appear and disappear without notice.

We have returned to the realms of Un Chien Andalou and L’Age d’Or. Indeed, the opening of L’Age d’Or where Imperial Rome is founded upon the final resting place of a group of Roman Catholic Bishops would fit perfectly into the logic-defying world of The Milky Way. The presence of Mary and Jesus within the diegesis makes it clear that in this world God too must be viewed as real. However, in a more extreme fashion than either Nazarin or Simon Of The Desert the reality of God is explicitly negative, presented as the cause of much discontent. Though Bunuel presents himself as God, this is less a self-aggrandisement project than it is a case of casting himself in the role of the villain.

IV. REVELATION

Bunuel’s control over his films’ realities was not only an example of highly individualistic direction but also a totally distinctive way of creating cinema. He did not just play God in his films as a response to his own Catholic upbringing – another way of mocking the establishment – he created a cinema that was so different to the tradition of narrative-driven films of the time that playing God was the only way to direct them.

These intricate diegesis’ were entire universes unto themselves, working by their own inscrutable laws of logic. No-one other than their creator could possibly have guided these tiny existences to their necessary conclusions; Hitchcock could never have coped with the timeless spaces (or, perhaps, spaceless times) of The Milky Way. This film was part of the final phase in the director’s career, one that increasingly looked to the past. In Belle De Jour, we find in the final sequence a conceptual remake of the beautiful ‘magic mirror’ sequence from L’Age d’Or; complete with an inexplicable view to the outside world, and a characters’ descent into fantasy that appears to almost be a Pavlovian response to the ringing of Bunuel’s extra-diegetic bells).

Bunuel’s very last film, That Obscure Object Of Desire, is clearly a cinematic apocalypse, it’s final on-screen explosion is both justified within the film’s plot and functions as a decisive indicator from the director-God that his cinematic kingdom has run its course. Shortly afterwards, Bunuel shuffled off this mortal coil and no doubt ascended to meet his maker – razorblade in hand.

                                                                                                                    - P.S.