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The starting point is the asceticism of Simeon Stylites, the punchline nods to García Lorca's Poet in New York ("No es el infierno, es la calle"). The holy fool literally puts his modesty on a pedestal, Simon (Claudio Brook) prays and fasts atop his column, eyeing the heavens above: "How long before I am worthy of thee?" Among the disciples below is a thief with severed hands—the protagonist makes him whole again, the man uses his new knuckles to shove his daughter, the crowd who came to see a miracle are unimpressed. The laddish priest is told to come back after he can grow a beard, the dwarf is close enough to the earth to fondle his goat's teats, both of them "hear the Devil at night." For a brief moment Simon wonders if his devotion frees him or enslaves him, his one indecency is yearning for the feel of dirt beneath his feet. Bless the little flies, and the morsels of food, too: "Besides being a spiritual exercise, blessing is good fun, too." A perfect Luis Buñuel parable, sardonic and tender, unfinished yet not incomplete. Satan (Silvia Pinal) of many forms, Goldilocks in black stockings, divine shepherd with a lamb for kicking, voluptuous Venus out of the scuttling coffin. From temptress to bare crone (cp. The Shining), God's lechuga and the hand on the anthill. Buñuel dollies in to reframe Simon as he gently wipes his eye in the middle of a sermon, then later dollies out to reveal a possessed monk about to froth, technique of transcendent simplicity. The saint atop the pillar "like the flame burning atop a candle," or a living monument of little use in the real world? The abrupt coda is a wide-angle jest on Murnau's Faust, and an invitation to the dance. With Enrique Álvarez Felix, Hortensia Santoveña, Luis Aceves Castañeda, and Enrique del Castillo. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |