Category: Directed by Luis Buñuel

  • Simon of the Desert (1965, Luis Buñuel)

    Simon of the Desert opens with the title character, played by Claudio Brook, getting a new pillar after six years on his first(?) one. He’s a priest doing penance (just general penance) and living his life in prayer atop a pillar, eating nothing but lettuce, drinking nothing but water, and a local rich guy appreciates…

  • The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972, Luis Buñuel)

    Buñuel arranges The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie as a series of vignettes. Occasionally there will be a surreal bridging device—the cast walking in search of a meal on a highway in the country—sometimes it will turn out to be a dream, sometimes it will be another layer (a narrated flashback, a dream-in-a-dream), sometimes it…

  • Tristana (1970, Luis Buñuel)

    Deliberate, somehow endless–it clocks in at ninety-five–Tristana is something of an anti-Buñuel or, at least, I was expecting something a little more uncanny. Tristana is so normal, it’s something of a surprise (the film occasionally seems ready to leap into the surreal, but it remains grounded throughout). But it’s very boring, in that good way…