Nothing Is Sacred: Three Heresies from Luis Bunuel

Released: 16th December 2024. From 1946 to 1965, Luis Bunuel directed 21 films in Mexico, the country that became his naturalised home. Towards the end of this period, the great master of surrealism would meet two of his most important collaborators - the husband-and-wife duo of producer Gustavo Alatriste and actress Silvia Pinal - and together they would create three of his most provocative and enduring works: Viridiana (1961), The Exterminating Angel (1962) and Simon of the Desert (1965). Presented here in new restorations, all three films are frequently hailed as some of the greatest of all time. All of what makes Bunuel one of the greatest of directors can be found within them: the startling imagery, the uncompromising surrealism, the wicked humour, the unapologetic eroticism, and the overwhelming disdain for contemporary boundaries of good taste. In Viridiana, Pinal stars as a former nun who, believing she has been defiled by a relative, abandons nunhood and attempts to repent and lead a morally pure existence by turning a mansion into a shelter for vagrants. Hugely controversial on release, this brilliant satire remains shocking today, and was voted the best Spanish film of all time by Spanish critics in 2016. The Exterminating Angel is one of Bunuel's most extraordinary and enduring works: after a night at the opera, a group of bourgeois party guests realise that they are inexplicably unable to leave the dining room they are sequestered in, and quickly descend into savagery. An influential blend of horror, comedy, drama and social commentary, the film was named one of the 200 greatest of all time in the 2022 Sight and Sound Critics Poll. Simon of the Desert is a typically outrageous and provocative commentary on organised religion: a parable of Simon, the would-be saint who lives an ascetic life at the top of a ten foot pillar, the film features a memorable turn from Pinal as the Devil, and an unforgettably bizarre ending.