Viridiana

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If the release of "The Da Vinci Code" offends your religious sensibilities, you might want to avoid Luis Buñuel´s playfully blasphemous "Viridiana" (1961).

Lovely young Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) is about to take her vows at the convent when her uncle invites her to visit his estate. Viridiana admits she feels nothing for the uncle she hasn´t seen in years, but goes reluctantly when ordered to do so by the Mother Superior. Depending on how you view the film, this is either a monumental mistake or Viridiana´s first step towards liberation.

Her uncle Don Jaime (Buñuel veteran Fernando Rey) is rich but lonely, and he soon falls madly in love with Viridiana who looks so much like his late wife. He becomes so obsessed with Viridiana that he drugs her and plans to rape her while she is unconscious; he doesn´t go through with it but still tells Viridiana he has deflowered her, hoping she will be too ashamed to return to the convent. His ploy fails, but he still gets the last laugh when he hangs himself and leaves half of his estate to her. Viridiana will have to postpone her return to a Godly life for a little while longer. Viridiana still clings to her principles (as well as her virginity) and devotes her life to helping the poor. She takes in a group of beggars, providing housing, food and work for them all. If you think the beggars are going to be grateful to their saintly benefactress, and that everything will be hunky-dory now that nasty old Don Jaime is out of the picture, you obviously don´t know Luis Buñuel.

Controversy dogged Buñuel throughout his career, but in this case the controversy began before "Viridiana" even began filming. Buñuel had left Spain in 1939, but suddenly decided in 1960 to return to his home country even though it was ruled by fascist dictator Francisco Franco. Buñuel´s return was viewed either as a betrayal or a ticking time bomb: the latter turned out to be closer to the truth. "Viridiana" opened auspiciously enough, sailing through the Spanish censors with only minor cuts, then winning the Palme d´Or at Cannes. But then the Vatican got wind of the film. Deeming it blasphemous, the Church mobilized Catholics to protest the film. Soon the film was banned in Spain, where it wasn´t screened again until 1977, thus quickly ending Buñuel´s homecoming party. However, while "Viridiana" did not endear Buñuel to Franco and Friends, it did earn him a degree of international attention he had not experienced since the 1930s and kick-started perhaps the most productive phase of his long and remarkable career.

Measured against the rest of Buñuel´s work, "Viridiana" actually seems fairly subdued. The film´s primary provocation, besides the incest subplot, involves the climactic sequence in which Viridian´s beggars, left unsupervised, run wild in the mansion. They stage a banquet which gradually morphs into an orgy, mirroring the sly way in which Buñuel initially depicts the beggars as picaresque then later as grotesque. At one point, they all pose for a "picture," striking a pose that directly imitates Da Vinci´s "The Last Supper" complete with a blind, abusive drunkard as Jesus. Buñuel claims he intended no blasphemy by this or by his inclusion of a crucifix that doubled as a switchblade (supposedly readily available in Spanish stores), but it´s difficult to believe he was unaware of the way the film would be received.

The beggars do far worse than just trash the estate. Once Viridiana returns, two of them try to rape her; the rape is only stopped then one of the beggars agrees to kill the other for money. It´s tempting to say that Buñuel is mocking Viridiana´s Christian ideals but if that´s all that was going on, the film would simply be a cruel joke without a good punch line. Buñuel is skeptical of Viridiana´s lofty and unrealistic ambitions, but he´s more interested in expressing the reality of life in Spain than in humiliating his protagonist.

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