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"Viridiana"

Posted by rico (A) on October 18, 2006 at 12:59:42

In this Luis Bunuel classic Sylvia Pinal plays the heroine, a postulant nun summoned by her uncle Fernando Rey to his estate just before she is to take her final vows. Viridiana does not want to go as evn though she knows that the uncle financed her education he has had basically nothing to do with her. She reluctantly agrees to visit after being ordered to by her Mother Superior. Rey is dying and spends most of his time playing or listening to Bach. He is enamored of the beautiful young Viridiana who resembles his wife, who died on their wedding night. Viridian resists his advances but on the night before she is to return to the convent she agrees to dress in the late wife's wedding dress. With the help of a complicent servant Rey asks her to marry him, to which she horrifyingly refuses. Rey and the servant drug her and take her to Rey's bed. He fondles her but then leaves.

The next morning he tells her that he has violated her and she believes him. Then he recants but she tells him it doesn't matter and she leaves. Rey then hangs himself and Viridiana returns to run the estate and take in beggars and the poor. Then arrives Rey's bastard son, who has inherited the place. They set up a dual culture, he modernizing, she trying to run a sort of reform commune.
When they leave for a legal meeting the vagrants break min and set up a feast, which turns into a drunken orgy.

All through there are many religious allusions, including a famous one where the drunken party is for a moment turned into da Vinci's Last Supper. At end, after having been raped by a one of the bums, Viridiana ends up playing cards with the son and the servant but we know it's more than cards. No more Bach and Handel, just modern rock and roll and a threesome.

Banned in Spain and condemed by the Vatican, the film has a strange power, even though it is really straight narrative, except for the religious allusions. There are multiple meanings here, too many to go into on this forum. But highly recommended for the emotions it evokes, emotions difficult to articulate. Rey, BTW, appears in a number of Bunuel fims, incuding my favorite, "That Obscure Object of Desire". Viridiana: 1961, black and white widescreen.

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