Fever Mounts at El Pao

for me, its basic virtue is to be the last film of Gerard Philipe. and an experiment , with decent result, of Bunuel trip in politic noir genre. it is far to be a good or a bad movie. because the genre was defined by Costa Gavras , it was very popular in "60 decade and it seems have the status of fragile equilibrium between themes, motifs, explanations, pretexts. the meet between Maria Felix and Jean Servais does the presence of Gerard Philipe almost symbolic. sure, at the second view, his Vazques becomes more realistic but more as the honest young man against a corrupt regime, in clothes of David against Goliath. short, a good film for another side of Bunuel art. for a reasonable portrait of dictatorship. and for few references to Soviet Union. or Franz Kafka.

For a director like Luis Bunuel,this is a holding pattern movie.Bunuel is neither Costa Gavras nor Alan J Pakula and his political plot falls short of its goal.What's definitely lacking here is madness,the surrealism,almost present at least in one sequence,dear to the great Spanish artist.His art becomes ineffective when it deals with pure drama.The irony seems tamed,subdued.Maria Felix's part is sometimes some kind of Maupassant's "Boule de suif" (a character from the nineteenth century),sometimes some kind of thirties Marlene Dietrich (Sternberg's "dishonored").In a nutshell,originality is not this character's forte.Gerard Philipe (sadly,soon to die from cancer)is miscast and ill-at -ease ,in his part of "intellectual trying to sweeten the dictature".Nevertheless,he ended his career with something more commendable than the disastrous Vadim's "les liaisons dangereuses".

Coming after "Nazarin" "la mort en ce jardin" or "cela s'appelle l'aurore",and preceding such masterworks as "Viridiana" "Belle de Jour" or "Tristana", this fever is not so hot.

Although Bunuel was personally dismissive of this film and neither he nor Gerard Philippe for a moment took the thing seriously, a director's failures can sometimes be more interesting than their successes. While no film with his veteran cameraman Gabriel Figueroa behind the camera and Maria Felix in front of it can fail to be worth watching.

One of Bunuel's most straightforward films and his most openly political, a drama about an idealist trying to foment rebellion in the fictional town of El Pao. Lacking Bunuel's comic sensibilities or surrealist touch, it's a pretty cut-and-dry affair with few surprises. The social commentary is sharp enough, but the film lacks zing and never seems to get off the ground. The highlight is the sultry performance by Maria Felix as the duplicitous wife of the governor. She gives Bunuel a chance to inject some of his sexual power dynamics and incorporate them into the political sphere. Otherwise, somewhat watchable but unengaging.

Known as «Los ambiciosos» in México, the co-producing country where director Luis Buñueñ relocated to, lived and died, as well as in most Latin American territories, this was made in 1959, the year Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, so while anyone can believe the plot and location refers to him and his homeland, they do not. Yes, the island of Ojeda is a Caribbean country ruled by a dictator (Andrés Soler at his meanest - he does receive credit in the Mexican version), but its banana-based economy (no sugar, tobacco or rum, as in Cuba) and the absence of a guerrilla movement, makes it "NowhereLand" with Gérard Philipe (in his last role) as a handsome idealist who falls for the wrong woman (María Félix looking very beautiful). In any case we will never know if Buñuel or in that case novelist Henri Castillou were able to see the future. A good political melodrama.