Wuthering Heights

A 1954 Mexican feature film version of Emily Brontë's literary classic ,transfering the romantic tragedy from the Yorkshire Moors to the haciendas and farmland of Mexico. Alejandro returns to his adopted home to find the love of his life Catalina has married the wealthy Eduardo. This sets in motion a series of tragic events. Director Luis Bunuel's version of the tale is a simplified adaptation of the original source material ,and not as good as the 1930s film version with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon ,partly due to not being able to empathise as much with the characters in this film. It's just as theme rich as other versions ,dealing with cruelty ,pride ,jealousy and hatred ,and the legacy of cruel exploitation ,inhumanity ,and lack of love. Featuring several Bunuelisms ,and a prowler who hangs about in the dark and rain outside and smashes through windows and doors ,this is a film about the pain of passion.

Briefly, my comments are directed to those who know the 1939 movie "Wuthering Heights", the novel "Wuthering Heights", and the work of Luis Bunuel. I love the novel. I love its intensity. I love its passion. I love its brutality. I love its carnal passion and its carnal brutality. Yet the 1939 Wylder version is practically sterile. Bunuel brings alive that passion and brutality. Frankly, Wylder's Wuthering Heights is embarrassed by Bunuel's when it comes to capturing the essentials of Bronte's novel. In my opinion, this fact is a reflection of the limitations put on 1930's Hollywood directors by studios looking to sell movies to a society that was unbending in its unwillingness to allow artists to truly stretch the art of film. Hollywood was slow to come around in expressing the same sexual and violent expressions that has always been present in literature from which it found its inspiration. As you might know, Bunuel has never let anything hold back his artistic expression. And in his version of Bronte's novel he takes full hold the emotion that Bronte intended us to feel.

Believe or not, this is the best adaptation of the marvelous and romantic story written by Emily Brontë in the Yorkshire Moors! Of course there are more faithful to the letter of the novel in those series made by the BBC long ago, but not the recent ones. The line story is so complicated that is very difficult for a movie to cover it fully. It's hardly believable that this Mexican movie does it so well as to be the best film on the subject, but that is the miracle of Art,

It doesn't belong to a place, but to all places, nor to a particular language, but to all languages. Buñuel's genius operates the miracle, aided by his excellent cast and team. This is the one version that captures the roots of Cathy's and Heathcliff's deep and contradictory emotions, the passions, the love and hate they shared and suffered, being all of them doomed to be unhappy in this world and hoping to be redeemed and united in the other. Placed in Mexico, black and white excellent photography, with a believable and intense cast, and a passionate, yet sometimes ironic direction, you must not judge before watching it. It is a great movie!

I just discovered, watched and reviewed this movie all in one day! I like the way Bunuel took the story of "Wuthering Heights" and made it his own, and I for one didn't miss the (drab and depressing) moors. This version went more for melodrama than a gothic atmosphere, and I enjoyed the difference. In this rendition, Catalina and Alejandro were separated more through family interference than her desire to join the world of the upper class, which makes her more sympathetic than Cathy. I can't say I approve of the way Alejandro treated Isabella, but his attitude seemed less cold and harsh than that of Heathcliff, at least to me.

The last scene was really powerful!

I could have done without all those dead butterflies, however.

Unlike William Wyler's movie in which Sir OlIvier shone as Heathcliff, Luis Bunuel 's adaptation of Emily Bronte's masterwork does not show Heathcliff's and Cathy's first years ;it begins when Catalina ( Catherine.) has married Eduardo (Edgar) and is pregnant by him ; the return of a wealthy Alejandro (Heathcliff )rekindles a passion that destroys everything ,knows no bounds ; they are characters of flesh and blood,following their instinct , with a love which verges on hate ; in direct contrast with that is Eduardo 's bourgeois love ,as alive as his collection of butterflies .

Bunuel's touch can be felt in this symbolism : one finds it again in Isabel's arrival in the lugubrious Alejandro's mansion -particularly faithful to the book-,where Riccardo (Hareton) catches a fly and gives it to a spider ; a pagan wedding even though he took place in the church ,even sacrilege :"I love Alejandro more than my soul"says Catalina before a shocked servant invoking Jesus and Maria ; "you'll awake in Hell " says Alejandro to Catalina. The ending takes amour fou to new limits , to the accents of Wagnerian music.

The moor -which Wyler filmed in studio - is replaced by the Mexican landscapes ,but it does not matter for the pictures are visually stunning ; the lovers' past is told in a very succint style. Bunuel focuses on lovers carried away by passion,which led them to cruelty toward the others : and eventually aren't the living in the tomb?