Viridiana

Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, 1961)

I watched Viridiana again. Cheery tale, about the little nun who tried. I think it was what led me to Bach’s French Suites, as Fernando Rey plays the Sarabande from the G major suite on his pedal-power harmonium.

It led me to wonder how many films have parodied Leonardo’s Last Supper.
An unlikely entrant is Death in Brunswick (John Ruane, 1991) – worth revisiting, and currently out of stock at EzyDVD, but I hope still in print. This has the other Carides sister, Zoe (not Gia, who’s usually to be found with that Italian guy from South Australia) in the sack with Sam Neill. It also has John Clarke, a writer who as an actor always looks as tho he’s about to go up, but never does. And it also has Boris Brkic, whose physiognomy means he gets few roles, but is unforgettable (and unspellable) here. Ruane’s little film has one of the best opening jokes I can think of, when Sam’s character finds his mother with her head in the gas oven.

But I proposed talking about Viridiana … And I guess I did. But OK, I’ll say … that it’s one of those films where you know from the start that the main female character is in it just to get raped just before the end, like (choke, I hate remembering anything to do with Nick Cave) The Proposition (John Hillcoat, 2005).

Viridiana, a young nun about to take her final vows, pays a visit to her widowed uncle at the request of her Mother Superior.

Silvia Pinal, Francisco Rabal, Fernando Rey


Garry Gillard | New: 3 March, 2017 | Now: 22 March, 2017