Wednesday, February 14 @ 7:30 PM / NEIU — The Auditorium at NEIU — 3701 W Bryn Mawr Ave
Tickets: $10 at the door
VIRIDIANA
Directed by Luis Buñuel • 1961
In Spanish with English subtitles
Narcissism or charity? Before taking her vows, a gorgeous and devout nun-in-training Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) is sent to visit her widowed uncle Don Jaime (Fernando Rey), a wealthy benefactor with a not-so-hidden agenda. Premiering three years after the release of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Viridiana begins as another movie about a man who attempts to perversely recreate a dead blonde. Don Jaime plots with his house servant Ramona (Margarita Lozano) to entrap his niece and violently prevent her from taking her vows, even adorning Viridiana in the wedding gown and veil of her look alike aunt. Eventually the would-be nun turns heiress and welcomes a crew of beggars to the mansion, to the dismay of her illegitimate cousin Jorge (Francisco Rabal). Buñuel shuffles the deck on some of his most prevalent themes and motifs with Viridiana, a satirical comedy that skewers Catholicism while reveling in fetishism and taboo-breaking subversion. Buñuel, a cinematic troublemaker, is the only person who could have made the film, a rigorously composed 90 minutes of shocking imagery and events, including a joyously sacrilegious depiction of the Last Supper. The film marked Buñuel’s return to his native country after over two decades of international work in the United States, Mexico, and France. Viridiana’s reception led to both the 1961 Palme d’Or and a disavowal from the Spanish government. Following controversy that declared the film blasphemous, it was blocked from release in Spain until Francisco Franco’s death in 1977. However, not all controversy is bad—to Buñuel’s delight, censorship even directly contributed to the film’s famously suggestive ending, a winking nod at further depravity. (RIN)
91 min • Unión Industrial Cinematográfica (UNINCI) • 35mm from Janus Films
Preceded by: The Sound of Music Trailer (1965) – 35mm
NEXT UP: KID GALAHAD on Wednesday, February 21 at NEIU