The Great Madcap

Luis Bunuel - 1949
What to expect from Bunuel's commerical Mexican pictures? Surely not something this great.
The direction; immediately Bunuel's later style, which some would call 'style-less', is apparent. What it is is unobtrusive tracks and pans that follow one character or another, often moving, dividing up space. It can also cut closer when the move would be too intrusive. It is masterful in its quiet way. The most obvious Bunuelian aspect are the compositions, as they are either dead-on medium shots or pretty long, full body stuff. As the characters are neatly arrayed like this in front of the camera, we have that compassionate study of human ants.
Nearly every line is loaded with a thousand bombs, every movement telling so much. That every line, deeply selfish and often violent for all the cheery delivery, actually makes sense in a kind of way, is perhaps Bunuel's deepest compassion; he doesn't hate these people. Life has just twisted itself that hoping the mother dies is kind of funny. The lines often have clear double meanings (this isn't deciphering, but just layering; it's all clearly there), almost like innuendo.
The story is remarkable. All out for themselves, then dressing up as proles. This is a remarkable first sequence; playing the part of the poor. It is remarkable in how it makes us look at the work, the washing, the house, the life in a fresh way. The absurdity of living in such misery is shown when people are directed to live like that. Seeing the world with new eyes.
Bunuel is way too great a filmmaker to leave us at simple conclusions. The family does start to love the proletarian lifestlye, and this is sincere, but also note how this moves fits perfectly in with the ascetic, perhaps post-1848 protestantism of capitalism. The whole experiment just makes him a tougher boss ('and thank God I didn't wake up, I nearly did!'- the father after the experiment).
It would be easy to list particular sequences as brilliant 'Bunuelist'; the loudspeaker for the first proposal, for example. What I loved is that, despite their having to be romance and explanation and so on, every sequence is not only executed brilliantly but becomes on its own perfectly Bunuelean, that is, true, naturalistic, texture of life, searing. The ice-creams at the engagement. How at the very end, the brie actually misses the car the first time around. This is almost imperceptible, as is my favourite; in the suicide scene, the painter underneath has a look, then gets on with his work. That scene, in fact, as the film tells us (it is pretty self-reflexive; Bunuel is aware of the need for that) that this is the one bit to be taken at face value; the evocation of the suicidal crapness of the frankly shit life of poverty.
The playacting of poverty is sharply criticised, how it can really mean very little. This is surely a selfanalysis by Bunuel, why he stuck to subjects he felt deserved tackling, that is, the bourgois. For all the 'happy poverty' here, what ultimately happens is that the bourgeois march on in that familiar line (Chaplin?), yet all the same there life has been shown as unstable, as rocked. That is Bunuel's striking brilliance.