Luis Buñuel had a message to deliver when he created this fascinating combination of social commentary and entertainment. Franco and his cronies got the message loud and clear even if they chose not to be guided by it.

Historical Background: In 1960, after his successful Mexican period (Los Olvidados, El), Luis Buñuel, the longtime exile from Spain, was invited to return to Spain, with Franco’s personal blessing. The Spanish dictator was intent on demonstrating to the world that life in Spain was not so repressive after all and that even so controversial an artist as Buñuel could work there unimpeded. Luis Buñuel, however, was nobody’s dupe and took advantage of the offer to prove precisely the opposite message about conditions in his beloved country. The film he made, back in Spain, was Viridiana and was the last that he would ever be permitted to make in his native country. Viridiana received its final editing barely in time for the Cannes Film Festival, was enthusiastically received, won the coveted Palme d’Or, and was immediately banned by the Franco government, never to be shown in Spain during the repressive Franco regime. In Italy, Buñuel was threatened with imprisonment should he step foot into the country and the Vatican promptly set out to excommunicate all those involved in the project. Even today, Viridiana remains among the Vatican’s blacklisted films. Why all the turmoil? It was Buñuel’s firm belief that Franco and the Spanish Catholic Church were political bedfellows and that freedom would never come to Spain until the power of the Catholic Church had been repudiated. Viridiana was an uncompromising attack on what Buñuel viewed as the failings of the Catholic Church. Shut out of Spain, Buñuel went on to make many successful films based mainly in France (Belle de Jour, Tristana, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and That Obscure Object of Desire).

The Story: Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) is a virtuous young woman living in a convent in Spain and about to take her vows as a nun, when she is urged by her superior to visit her closest living relative, Don Jaime (Fernando Rey), at his estate. Dutifully if reluctantly, she pays the visit and is put up in a bedroom in the large mansion. We see from her habits and possessions the magnitude of her piety. In her suitcase, she carries a crown of thorns. Her nightgown is constructed of simple muslin and she chooses to sleep on the floor rather than in the comfortable bed. Viridiana even performs religious rituals as she walks in her sleep. Don Jaime is the model of courtesy and kindness to her, though he is privately obsessed with his young niece, who resembles the beloved wife that Don Jaime lost on their wedding night thirty years earlier.

The lonely Don Jaime asks Viridiana to oblige him by trying on his deceased wife’s wedding gown, and the young niece does so. The aroused Don Jaime is now intent on keeping his niece with him at the estate. With the help of his maid, Ramona (Margarita Lozano), Don Jaime drugs Viridiana, planning to ravish her while she is unconscious. He gets as far as kissing her (which is witnessed by the maid’s daughter, Rita (Teresa Rabal), who is spying), but can proceed no further.

Viridiana believes her uncle’s assertion that he did not, in fact, deflower her (which would have precluded her becoming a nun), but is quite naturally anxious to leave the estate as quickly as possible. Reaching the bus station, she receives word that her uncle has committed suicide (hanging himself with Rita’s jump rope) out of shame for his mistreatment of his niece. Viridiana soon learns that she is to inherit the estate along with Don Jaime’s prodigal son, Jorge (Francisco Rabal).

In contrast to the idealistic and religious Viridiana, Jorge is a pragmatic, modern kind of man – in touch with his passions but devoted to practical solutions to problems. Viridiana and Jorge find themselves sharing the estate while engaged in fully disparate life styles. He enjoys card games and romantic liaisons in the evenings interspersed with his efforts to improve the lot of those for whom he bears responsibility. Viridiana, by contrast, decides to use her portion of the estate as a shelter for the town’s beggars and vagrants. Although Jorge makes only slow, guarded progress through his practical efforts, Viridiana fares even more poorly with her misguided altruism. When the household is vacated for an evening by the family and servants, the beggars move in and take over, helping themselves liberally to the food and wine, while blasting music by Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven on the phonograph. In an especially controversial scene, Buñuel stages a visual reenactment of the Last Supper, featuring the beggars in a drunken orgy to the strains of Handel’s Messiah. When Viridiana walks in on the scene and tries to impose virtue, she is mocked and very nearly raped for her effort. Viridiana has learned her lesson and decides to throw in her lot with her cousin, joining him and his mistress in a game of cards and, seemingly, an implied future ménage à trois.

Themes: Buñuel’s message, though universal to an extent, was clearly aimed at Franco Spain of 1961. Buñuel firmly believed that Catholic piety and governmental repression were not going to address the problems confronting Spain at the time, such as poverty and hopelessness. Spain needed pragmatic solutions (represented by Jorge), not spiritual ideals, charity, and sexual repression (as represented by Viridiana). There is one scene, in particular, that captures Buñuel’s conception of what was and was not possible. Jorge spies a family of peasants rumbling along the roadway adjacent to the estate, with a tired old dog attached by rope to the cart – a common practice among the peasants in Spain. Jorge takes pity on the poor cur and purchases it to spare it from its hopeless lot. No sooner has the transaction culminated than another cart passes by in the opposite direction with another similarly unfortunate cur trailing along behind. Buñuel was no naïve idealist suggesting that pragmatic solutions could work miracles and save everyone at once. Nevertheless, one dog spared was more than Viridiana was able to accomplish with her well-intended but misdirected charity. The beggars quickly learned that it made little sense for them to exert themselves as long as they were under the care of a gullible and tender hearted do-gooder. It’s the same controversy that we have today in relation to welfare. Neither extreme – lack of opportunity or unlimited handouts – raises the lot of the poor. A social system has to be constructed to provide both opportunity and incentive.

My principal reservation about this film is that Buñuel’s message lacks subtlety. This is a man attacking Catholicism and Franco repression with a sledge hammer. His case is not so much based on reason or argument as emotional appeals. Even though I agree with Buñuel’s perspectives on both religion and totalitarian regimes, Viridiana impresses me as more of a rant against these perceived evils than a convincing case. There are times when the heavy-handedness of a Buñuel message actually becomes a distraction from the film narrative.

Production Values: Thirty-plus years earlier, Luis Buñuel had come to public attention (and controversy) as a great master of surrealism with his revolutionary film L’Age D’Or (1930). He continued to incorporate surrealistic elements, if more judiciously, into many of his films throughout his career and Viridiana is no exception. Here, he confines such elements largely to dream sequences, using the surrealism to reveal subconscious feelings of aggression and sexuality. As with all of Buñuel’s work, there is great attention to detail and shot composition.

The performances in Viridiana are all quite strong, but I would suggest that this is the rare case of a movie in which the secondary characters are ultimately more crucial than the leads in carrying the film's message. The corps of performers playing the beggars are literally frightening in their degenerate corruption and filthy appearances and mannerisms. Some of the actors and actresses playing the beggars (e.g., José Calvo, Lola Gaos, Margarita Lozano) were or would became accomplished professionals with significant roles in other films.

Silvia Pinal does a fine job combining subliminal sexuality with overt purity. She later worked for Buñuel again in The Exterminating Angel (1962). Francisco Rabal had an equally difficult role, needing to combine pragmatic good intentions with an earthy interest in personal gratification. Rabal later worked for Buñuel in Belle de Jour (1967) and for Pedro Almodóvar in Tie Me Up! Time Me Down! (1990). I am not as big a Fernando Rey fan as are many critics, but his work in Viridiana was among his best. His extensive resume includes Chimes at Midnight (1966), Tristana (1970), The French Connection (1971), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Seven Beauties (1976), and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977).

Bottom-Line: Although I haven’t seen Buñuel’s Nazarin (1958), reviewer comments seem to indicate that Viridiana is so similar in thematic territory to the earlier film that it could almost be viewed as something of a sequel. Both films were based on novels by Benito Pérez Galdós. Viridiana is Buñuel at both his creative best and his institution-baiting worst. If you're sensitive about strong anti-religious rhetoric, you may find this film objectionable, but for the iconoclasts among you, feast away! Viridiana is in Spanish with English subtitles and has a running time of 90 minutes.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Spain:

L’Age D’Or
All About My Mother
Belle Epoque
Butterfly
Carmen
Cria!
El
The Grandfather
Labyrinth of Passion
Sex and Lucía
Spirit of the Beehive
Talk to Her
Thesis
Tie Me Up! Time Me Down!
Tierra
Tristana
Vacas
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age