Viridiana (Luis Bunuel, 1961)
Feels right that this is the film Bunuel won the Palme d'Or for. It looks great and feels meticulous and precise in a way most of his films don't, and it's probably his most didactic work, which is not necessarily a bad thing: there's a clarity of purpose here that is impressive in its own way, in that the whole film is dedicated to destroy Viridiana's... everything really, her faith, her innocence, her naïveté. Bunuel sets out to crush her spirit, and well, he gets to decide what happens in the story so of course he succeeds.
You might get from the way I put it that this is a film I admire more than I like. There is a limit to how much I can enjoy a work that is so thoroughly misanthropic and jaded. Maybe there is a way to read the final scene as a victory of the human spirit over the hypocrisy of religion, but that seems like a huge stretch, especially given the nature of the whole "playing cards" idea. It plays more like a final bit of provocation. I suppose those three characters at least accept to face life honestly, and that can be read as a victory, but it's more of a resignation: the world sucks, so let's just give up and care only about ourselves.
So yeah, this is impressive work, and I enjoy Bunuel's cheeky use of symbolism with Viridiana's crown of thorns and that Last Supper shot of course. Fernando Rey is doing the Fernando Rey thing, Silvia Pinel makes for a stunning martyr, and the ensemble is quite strong as well, in that they do feel like real people: not completely horrible, just the regular kind of horrible. It's all very well done, but I like Bunuel more when I can't be entirely sure of what he's saying, probably because I just don't really like what he has to say.
7/10