 |
|
|
| Viridiana - Criterion Collection |
 enlarge
|
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $19.95
You Save: $10.00 (33%)
Buy New/Used from $19.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 22 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1080
Category: DVD
Publisher: Criterion
Studio: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Label: Criterion
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: Spanish (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 91 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
UPC: 037429212622
EAN: 0037429212622
ASIN: B000C8Q900
Release Date: May 23, 2006
Theatrical Release Date: March 19, 1962
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
|
Similar Items:
| " |
The Complete Mr. Arkadin (aka Confidential Report) - Criterion Collection |
| " |
The Passenger |
| " |
Elevator to the Gallows - Criterion Collection |
| " |
Late Spring - Criterion Collection |
| " |
Fists in the Pocket - Criterion Collection |
|
|
Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Bunuel's best June 23, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bunuel is famous for his spectacular surrealistic films. Un Chien Andalou is remembered for the shot of a razor blade cutting an eyeball. L'Age D'or is notorious for its blasphemies and a scene of a woman sucking on a toe of a statue. None of these films have ever meant much to me. They are provocative and seem to have no point except to provoke. In Viridiana, however, Bunuel goes for the jugular and dissects the basic philosophy that is implicit in religion - the idea that humans are essentially changeable and that their essence is not a matter of inflexible genetic determination. If we are good, bad, or somewhere in the middle because of our genes and if that can't be dramatically changed, however, redemption is nonsense, and conversion is not possible. Furthermore, mindless and universal charity to all without exception is the work of simpletons and nothing but a waste of valuable emotional and financial resources. Having worked with sections of the population that have high levels of sociopathy, poor insight, and low intelligence, I have come to believe that incarceration is sometimes the most efficient use of our resources and that our belief in human perfectability is a silly denial of the facts. I see the same waste of resources on parts of the population in the school system that cannot be educated past the fourth grade but that are forced to stay in school for 12 years.
Viridiana is a pious woman who invites all the lowlife in town to live in a mansion. She hopes to improve their lives with charity, prayer, and useful work. They return her benevolence with rudeness, ingratitude, and by making a shambles of the mansion while she is away. One outrage is piled on top of another as they mock everything that their benefactoress values. This gross and disgusting group of lowlifes (who no one in the audience could be anything but repulsed by) pursue their crude appetites while Handel's Messiah plays on the phonograph. When she returns, they try to rape her. Bunuel spares nothing to show us that the criminal and sociopathic remain so. These people are trash. Most importantly, Bunuel mocks the idea that these people are redeemable trash.
Viridiana's hope for these people vanishes. The new master of the house installs electricity - something that Viridiana, with her medieval outlook, had resisted. It is symbolic of Viridiana giving up her world view from the dark ages. She then joins the master in his room. The censors forced Bunuel to have them play cards but Bunuel's intention was for her to join him in his bed - the master is the realist who never had any illusions about human evil. Now, Viridiana submits to his view of human nature.
This is a profound movie - it is one of the few films that seriously contrasts a pagan world view with a christian one. In the pagan view, humans are born with determined destinies and there isn't the possibility of dramatic change in the essence of a person. Each individual is a product of blind nature - with limited potential and a few meager gifts (if any) bestowed in order to make one's way in the world, which is the polar opposite of the popular (and crazy) belief that we can all be anything we want to be if we just put our minds to it (despite genetics and 150 years of Darwinian insight). The ancient view was that Humans can be dangerous - there is a very real human capacity for violence and evil. The point in life, according to the pagans, was to learn to survive in this precarious set of circumstances and to seek out happiness in the midst of it. Trying to change people from bad to good was a non-concern (everyone had enough trouble in their own life to deal with without trying to makeover a neighbor); one tried to avoid the bad and surround oneself with the good.
In Viridiana's view, the bad only need compassion and bread in order to become good. To Viridiana, goodness is the human default position and when people are not good it must be because they have not been given enough compassion and bread. This view states that human essence has no dependence on nature (or genetics) and is totally a matter of nurturing. One's duty is to restore other humans to their default position and sacrifice one's own happiness and life while doing it. The world is seen as a benevolent place, designed for mankind and ruled - not by blind, uncaring nature - but by a benevolent being. Humans have unlimited potential - they have no limits placed on them by genetics, nature, circunstances, or destiny.
Bunuel makes it clear which viewpoint is worth mocking - he does it with such ease that it will upset anyone who holds to this view. The Last Supper scene is Bunuel in his directorial guerilla warfare mode (The lowlifes pose for a photo in imitation of DaVinci's "Last Supper") but the rest of the film is a clear-eyed and clear-headed dissection of a philosophy that lives on in the more extreme politically correct positions suffocating our ability to deal effectively with terrorism, education, crime, illegal immigration, and that continues to allow religious sects to have great influence over the private lives of citizens.
This film is not the Bunuel who delights in visual shock tactics; it is Bunuel, the fierce and brilliant critic.
Excellent.
Eppur si muove! June 15, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is the masterpiece of atheist Spanish film director Luis Bunuel. An unrelentless, devastating, unmerciful criticism of religion. Yes, it can be viewed as a social satire, a political vehicle, etc. That's what makes it a great film, that you can view it from different perspectives.
To me the most valuable aspect of this film is the opportunity to see, as in a wide canvass, the soul and mind of this great atheist man. It is revealing that Bunuel took to the task of "proving" religion wrong and absurd with so intense passion and -I would even say- desperation. Because no one is more desperate than he who searches and can't find. But, as Unamuno would say to explain the angst of the author, it comes from seeking to believe with the reason and not with the life.
The film depicts Spain's social condition pretty accurately in those mid-century years. Unamuno explains this aspect (though he wrote decades before Bunuel's work) as follows: "In France and Spain there are multitudes who have proceeded from rejecting Popery to absolute atheism, because 'the fact is, that false and absurd doctrines, when exposed, have a natural tendency to beget scepticism in those who received them without reflection. None are so likely to believe too little as those who have begun by believing too much.'"
Another important aspect of the film is the way he depicts the poor. Helplessly incorrigible, lacking as much in money as in human virtues, and extremely ugly and repealing. It is very curious how Bunuel did not even allow any little space for sentimentality or candidness; I mean, there is no hero or anything even close to it. It's a terrible portrait of the human soul. I would say pessimistic, but I don't think Bunuel would agree. He would probably prefer sincere or realistic. The symbolism is so evident that any private school kid could figure it out, so forcibly paired are the scenes with their objects of criticism. And trying to make it so evident (and not as difficult as other of his surrealistic films) evidences his intensity of feeling, his anger, his hatred of all that Bunuel despises, religion. And not only Catholicism -it just happened to be Spain- but universal religion. Going back to the the poor in the film, Bunuel being a communist sympathizer, it is ironic that he doesn't show even a little mercy with his poor. I think the rich young man is a more admirable figure than any of his other characters. The female protagonist, the nun who gives up her vows being used only as a tool, cannot be expected to represent all nuns or all religious persons -it would be preposterous-. A case that in real life might happen isolatedly should not be used to prove a general rule. It is dishonest. But there is a correlation between his view of the economically poor and the Christian view:
"For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always." John 12:8
Isn't there something of the same nature? So how can one conception of the poor lead Christians to love them nevertheless (knowing that they will always be around), and the furious atheist/socialist to despise them (maybe not to condemn them, because surely "society or the rich" would take the blame). Well, that question is for everybody to meditate on.
I wish people like Bunuel would give Christ a chance. Unamuno, another great Spaniard, says: "Note the greater part of our atheists and you will see that they are atheists from a kind of rage, rage at not being able to believe that there is a God. They are the personal enemies of God." But -I say- how can you be an enemy of someone who does not exist?
However, this is a great and splendid work of art. But now, ending with a quote from Rousseau: "Where is the philosopher who would not willingly deceive mankind for his own glory? With believers he is an atheist; with atheists he would be a believer. The essential thing is to think differently from others."
Nevertheless, it moves!
Bunuel's masterpiece June 9, 2006
Bunuel takes on religous hypocrisy in a most witty and strange film - one of the great achievements of his long and prolific career. Fans of Bunuel's later French films will be delighted to see the roots of his very Spanish surrealistic heritage - as you probably know Bunuel worked with Salvador Dali on his early films of the 30's. Bunuel's period in Mexico seems to have brought out his genius in its most effective visual style - we can only hope criterion will release films like 'los oblivados' 'el' and 'Nazarin' until then we have 'Viridiana' which will keep us occupied with its many levels of meaning and symbolism...
 a movie that must have meant alot in 1961 franco's spain June 5, 2006
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
this is a symbolic movie about social conditions in spain at the time of the dictator franco. it's also a vicious satire with the catholic church as the main villain. although it's interesting it doesn't have much relevance to 2006 usa. it's too specific to a time and place, namely franco's spain. there's also a last supper parody that some may find offensive. the bottom line is, this is a movie for film buffs not the average viewer. p.s. maybe this movie is more profound and relevant than i realized. can the loss of faith in religion have led directly to national socialism and communism? was getting rid of religion the removal of the final brake against modernistic totalitaian ideoloy? was this what bunuel was advocating? the throwing out of the baby with the bath water so to speak. i don't know enough about bunuel to offer an opinion on that but more and more as i get older, i thank god (although i'm not religious) that i was born an american. the implications (of this movie) that other reviewers have pointed out were completely lost on me. i guess i'm just another naive american. thank god.
THE ONE TRUE VINE May 22, 2006
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Bunuel's films remain among the leading and truly subversive examples of 20th century cinema. And now that most movies are the product of rather large and shall we say committed to the mainstream entertainment corporations, any whiff of the subversive is typically squelched for, well, you tell me. So, we can only hope that someday soon more of his work -- perhaps even "The Exterminating Angel" -- will turn up on Criterion's list of newly restored masterpieces.
Assuming you already know the film (why else would you be looking here?) it's enough to say that Criterion has done their usual and detail-oriented job in bringing sound and image and translations up to the optimal. The extras are actually worth having and worth watching. Combined with the booklet essay and Bunuel interview, this work is set solidly and clearly into its historic and artistic context.
Of course, if you're not yet familiar "Viridiana" or the body of Bunuel's work, it's time to grow up and skip the distractions of various takes on da Vinci codes and risk some exposure to real ideas-- the kind that can change your way of thinking instead of simply reinforcing what you may already know.
|
|
|
Copyright Runningonkarma.com 2006
|
|
|
