El (1953) *** 1/2 (out of 4) A wealthy, highly religious middle aged virgin (Arturo de Cordova) marries a woman (Delia Garces) he believes to be his true calling but things soon start to fall apart when the man becomes overdone with jealousy and obsession. This was my first Luis Bunuel film and while the story isn't anything too original, the direction certainly puts it in a league of its own. The claustrophobic ending was very well handled and highly memorable as was the performance by de Cordova who really gets inside this characters head.

As his most technically accomplished Mexican-period movie, and almost a mainstream one, this film can be an enjoyable first introduction into Buñuel's obsessions: the same ones that ruled the surrealistic movement. The underground psychological streams in the mind are finely expressed in this story of a pathological jealous and his victim. In his Mexican exile, Buñuel was forced to make "nourishing movies", that were the most conventional ones in his filmography, but he managed to smuggle his surrealistic ideals into all of them (even he could make the absolutely surrealistic "The Exterminating Angel").Based on an autobiographic novel by Spanish fellow countrywoman Mercedes Pinto, this film is the vehicle for displaying many marvelous surreal moments. It can also be viewed as a brilliant clinical recreation of paranoid distress, but Buñuel recognized that the protagonist, Francisco Galván, although insane, had many of his own obsessions: his view of love as an absolute imperative, the violent impulses, the fetishism for female feet…The story shifts from one point of view to another, which is the only way to understand the "two stories" in psychotic disorders.Part of the story and many of the ideas were used later by Hitchcock for his masterpiece "Vertigo (From among the dead)". It is difficult to say plagiarism when talking about cinema, but this would be one occasion for it. It is not coincidence that both directors share a taste for the expressive properties of objects (not only as Macguffin); as two reluctantly catholic directors, objects usually act as "sacraments" for their narrative. In "El" the church and its symbols are the background for the repression and the blooming of instincts; other Buñuel's stories may be more connected with religion than this one, but "El" shows a life absolutely permeated by the relationship of primary impulses ("eros" and "thanatos") with spiritual transcend ency. With churches as the setting of the key moments of the story (desire, love encounter, the urge for murder, disappointment), church is at the beginning and the ending of this story narrated by the man who said "Thank God, I'm an atheist".Although was filmed in three weeks, in the midst of the limitations of Mexican film industry, the movie is close to perfection in formal terms. In contrast with his previous movies, in which a still camera was predominant, in this one the camera movements are constant. The performances and the choice of cast is the most accurate of the Buñuel's Mexican-period.

I had these words by Alex Epstein in mind when I left the theater. Before I went to watch Él I knew Hitchcock had taken a bit to draw Vertigo. Well, it's not simply a bit.Buñuel's style is both graceful and low-key. It's a pity this made his work less obviously marvelous to masses. On the other hand if there is something lacking in Él this is a gripping suspense. Something Hitch mastered with his will to enthrall masses. Buñuel's directing is more on the side of actors for us to hesitate between judging the characters and just waiting for more... which is exactly the theme.Bringing psychological torments to screen is definitely not easy a directing choice . It's a challenge for the upper-crust and I remember Hitchcock's Spellbound was not really convincing, neither was Fritz Lang's Secret beyond the door. Yet each brought something to be chewed for others to experiment.

This tale of a pathologically jealous husband, whose delusions of cuckoldry teeter over the edge into madness, ranks with BELLE DE JOUR and the early surrealist films as the first rank of the Bunuel canon. The ending, which has audiences screaming out loud in a mixture of gruesome delight and horror, would probably drive Brian DePalma to death by alcohol if he saw it. Brian, don't watch, okay?