16 Jul 2021 – 1:16 p. m.
From the religious processions in his Aragonese town to little-known family images, a documentary presented at Cannes reveals how the childhood of legendary director Luis Buñuel influenced his surrealist cinema.
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The screening at Cannes Classics of “Buñuel, a surrealist filmmaker”, directed by Javier Espada, the director’s great specialist, coincides with the 60th anniversary of the Palme d’Or of “Viridiana” (1961), which turned Luis Buñuel (1900 – 1983) in the only Spanish to win the highest award in the history of the contest.
“From his presence in the processions of Calanda (Buñuel’s birthplace), death is part of me, I have never wanted to ignore it”, supposedly says the voice of the great artist – actually that of his nephew Alfonso – at the beginning of the documentary .
From archive images that show traditions and memories of this town in Aragon (northeast Spain), interspersed with fragments of great films by Buñuel, Espada identifies direct references in his cinema.
This is the case of a famous miracle in Calanda about a man with a single leg that could be at the origin of the amputation of “Tristana”. Or his fondness for insects, which could come from a republican doctor in town who liked these animals.
Until now, “Buñuel has always been talked about after his meeting with Lorca and Dalí at the Student Residence, but no, Buñuel begins earlier, in Calanda,” he told the Afp Espada agency, also a native of this town and creator of the center dedicated to the filmmaker.
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“Cigar box”
In the documentary there are also some old stereoscopic images in glass that belonged to Leonardo Buñuel, the director’s father. The content of some of them could be “pressurrealistic”, according to Espada, which would suggest a certain influence on his son.
All this material reveals “what the rural world in which Buñuel was born was like (…) and allows us to“ discover that great influence on the child that is being formed, ”insists Espada.
The author acknowledges that without the help of the Buñuel family, the documentary would not have been possible. His son Juan Luis gave him access to family photo albums and also to a peculiar “cigar box”, in which the fragile stereoscopic glass plates were kept.
The unpublished images of the discards of “The Golden Age”, Buñuel’s second feature film, on loan from the Pompidou Center in Paris, are also part of the extraordinary material revealed in the documentary.
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In addition to showing the influence of Buñuel’s Aragonese roots in his films, with this feature film Espada also wants to emphasize the weight of the surrealist master in today’s cinema.
“There are many films in which the stamp, the imprint, Buñuel’s laugh, that black humor, is present,” he says. And, without going any further, he cites the example of the horror film “Titanio”, presented in competition at Cannes, in which motor oil is seen coming out of the protagonist’s breasts, after having sex with a car.
Another director in contention, the American Wes Anderson, admitted during the presentation of his film “The French Chronicle”: “I always return to Buñuel.”
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