That was an excellent one.

Sorry, this movie sucks

Good concept, poorly executed.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A shapeless curiosity which has to be called surreal, if nothing else. The first, last and only beggars' supper is certainly memorable, although I found I had totally forgotten the first half of this film. Its events seem disconnected: a series of non-sequitors not linked, as normal, by logical cause and effect. Instead they seem to be joined up by the uses that a little girl's skipping rope can be put to. Trotting dogs under peasants' carts are in evidence, one of which is pointlessly freed, for a sum, and then doesn't feature any further. The film shows what people will do with their unexpected wealth. Act charitable to the poor. All very enigmatic. The relationships between the protagonists follow a haphazard pattern of peculiar and unexpected developments, finally settling for a card-playing ménage a trois. It was watchable, but requires patience. Surreality is just saying and doing the next thing that comes into your head. Like modern politics. A secular Protestant like myself is not bothered at all about the Roman church. Unused to the Angelus. Some of the servants leave. Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or.

If you don't know a thing about the time this flick was made then you will think what is all the fuss about because it's 90 minutes of blah blah. That's correct but if you place it in it's era then I can understand that the church tried to ban this flick.Not that it is shocking or so but it was made by Luis Buñuel, a director living in exile and in 1962 Le Peuple (newspaper) made an effort to say he should bee seen by a psychiatrist. It was his first flick made in Spain and controversial it became even seen for a long time as a lost flick. But here it is.The flick was the Spanish entry for the Golden Palm but the Vatican tried to stop that. They succeeded in some way because it was lost in Spain for 16 years. Due a novice playing the main lead it's there where the catholics found their blasphemy. Somehow I can understand that the people aren't impressed by God after all in this flick that what makes it hard to take back then. I won't recommand it for those who think it's all about Satanism or whatsoever, it isn't. But the novice being drugged by her uncle and being undressed (just some cleavage) was shocking and controversial. Overall, a bit of a demonstration against religion to show that not everybody is impressed by religion. Only for those seeking out some Mexican-Spanish history. Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 0/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

From director Luis Buñuel (Un Chien Andalou, Land Without Bread, Belle De Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), this was a Spanish film that I found in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and I knew nothing about it, but was willing to watch. Basically young novice Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) taking her final vows as a nun, when her only living relative, uncle Don Jaime (The French Connection's Fernando Rey), invites her to visit him, she is pressured by her Mother Superior into accepting, as she is reluctant having only met him once before. Don Jaime lives in seclusion on his farm, with his servants as company, Ramona (Margarita Lozano), Monco and his daughter Rita (Teresa Rabal), and he is haunted by the fact that his niece has a strong resemblance to his dead wife, and he has oddly requested her to wear his deceased wife's wedding dress, she reluctantly complies because of his financial support. Ramona informs Viridiana that her uncle wants to marry her, she is shocked, but he apparently drops the idea, but then Ramona drugs her, and while she is unconscious he was intending to rape her, before he changes his mind, but to make sure she stays he lies to her that he took her virginity, meaning she cannot return to the convent, he eventually confesses, but she still questions what happened that night. She is later prevented from leaving by the authorities when heading for the bus stop, her uncle hangs himself and the property is given to her and his illegitimate son Jorge (Francisco Rabal), she is disturbed and does not return to the convent, she instead helps beggars and creates a place to educate and feed them, Moncho leaves in disgust. Jorge starts renovating the house and moves in with his girlfriend Lucia (Victoria Zinny), she senses that he has feelings for Viridiana, and after she leaves he makes a pass at unwilling Ramona, later while the house is empty and paupers break in and there is drunken and riotous party like behaviour, and when the owners return they find it in shambles. One beggar who threatens Viridiana pulls a knife on Jorge, he is struck on the head with a bottle and goes unconscious for a few moments, eventually after the wannabe rapist is stopped in his tracks the police come in to calm the situation, in the end Viridiana is changed, it is a question whether she feels for Jorge, especially after she catches him in a suspicious way with Ramona. I will firstly admit that not all the description is my own input, but I followed enough of the story to almost agree with critics giving the film five out of five stars, the leading performance of Pinal is absolutely the best as the innocent, vulnerable and declining former nun, the scenes I found most watchable were certainly her relationship with the uncle and her work with the homeless people, and there are some good small moments mocking religion that work well too, an interesting satirical drama. Very good!

Sorry Buñuel fans, I know comparisons are odious but if I had to pick the definitive Maestro between him and Fellini, I'd say Fellini without a doubt. And Viridiana gives me the best arguments. Let's face it: this is a dated movie, hardly a classic. The raw value of a classic is above all its resilience to time and V. doesn't do well through that test; even more considering that its lasting value comes from that "slap in the face to Franco" and from a rather gratuitous blasphemy scene. Also, the movie is not the fruit of an unique stroke of creative genius, but instead a work with sources of inspiration in two traditional Hispano American cultural creatures.Most Buñuel reviewers fail to recognize where he gets his real sources and influences. For ex. they say of Phantasm that it got no structure, when the fact it has one, that of a "novela picaresca", a genre born in Spain in 1554. The protagonist of the N.P. is usually a man born in the lowest strata of society--gen. an orphan--who grew up having to endure numerous hardships under the yoke of cruel, miserable masters, including assorted clerics and blind men. Structurally a NP is a sequence of short, unrelated, stories, their only common link being the "picaro", its protagonist. About Phantasm, Buñuel himself said once that his initial idea was to use one single character as the link, so I'll rest my case there. You can do further research, but let's just say the mood of a NP is usually ugly, one of utter disenchantment, even if the picaro tries to keep a brave face when telling his story--because he's also the narrator—spicing it up with dark humor. (For ex. in Lazarillo de Tormes the essential NP, the way he got rid of his blind master--he says--was to put the man in front of a post, telling him there was an irrigation ditch in the way, so he had to jump as far as he could—-so you can see there the traditional inspiration for the ugliness and cruelty of the beggars here). The other traditional source which inspires the first part of the movie, is Hispano American melodrama, mostly Mexican and Spanish.Contrary to North American melodrama, which focuses on intrigue, plot twists, clash of personalities, Iberoamerican melodrama is corny, sappy and it focuses mainly in getting the waterworks going. One plot line that was used and abused for decades was for ex. that of the poor woman who gives birth to and illegitimate child, who is then taken away and given in adoption to a rich family. Decades later the still poor woman goes to work as a maid in a wealthy household and guess what...You got it, the master of the house is her lost son. So when the last episode comes out, their coming together, there's no one single handkerchief to be found in the whole city.The main character here comes right out of Hispanic melodrama; that's why I don't like it, specially when Pinal overdoes the virginal vestal. It is as if once given her marching orders she would have switched herself to make for the sappiest soap opera heroine. Come on, I've known girls like that but never one like her. In real life they usually lose that innocence as soon as they step out of the convent. Viridiana is unrealistic, a caricature; no wonder the movie seems to become real only once the beggars are left alone. It would have been better if Buñuel had thought of her as just another down to earth character, but it seems he was bent on keeping her above the crowd as some kind of a metaphor. Of a Spain torn between its traditional forces maybe--the Church and a decaying land aristocracy--but I fail to see there in what Arrabal's Jorge can be compared to Franco. Franco wasn't a urban liberal at all but an ultra conservative, uber traditionalist, dictator and war criminal. That's also why, returning to Viridiana, I prefer actresses from outside doing Hispanic heroines when it comes to melodrama. Hispanic actresses can be good at comedy, satire--as Pinal certainly is in Simon and Exterminating Angel-but when it comes to melodrama they seem genetically programmed to ham it up, to tune themselves to get the audience's waterworks going full blast, or else they may think they have failed.So, while Fellini was instrumental in giving birth to a new film genre, Italian neo-realism and then went to create his own universe--Fellinesque we call it--where the characters born of his own fruitful imagination, memories, could evolve at ease, there's no such equivalent in Buñuel's work. Buñuel got propelled into surrealism in his association with Dali, of course, but he is more apt at showing his philosophy of life—his disenchantment with mankind and its pathetic attempts to reach the transcendental, its habit of debasing everything it touches; his own amazement at the weirdness of the situations we find ourselves many times in life--and also at bringing memories and dreams to the screen, he was more apt at that than at creating a new universe where his own characters could live and evolve--as Kafka did in literature and Fellini in movies. That's why many Fellinis are timeless, I could watch them many times over, while quite a few Buñuels are already irremediably dated, as Viridiana. I say 6.5/10, of interest mostly for film students and Buñuel fans.