Movie Reviews for Viridiana - Criterion Collection

Viridiana - Criterion Collection

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Movie Reviews of Viridiana - Criterion Collection

Movie Review: Muddy criticism of Catholicism
Summary: 2 Stars

This is presumably an intended indictment of religious reformism and bourgeois attitudes towards charity, but it reads like a Protestant celebration of productive (hard) work and discipline over the mystic impulse. It's also a profoundly mean spirited film without the redeeming surrealist humour that makes "The Exterminating Angel", "Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" or "Phantom of Liberty" so entertaining.

As other the amateur reviewers have pointed out Viridiana is a novice who is invited to stay with her uncle just prior to her taking vows. Closely resembling her late aunt she stirs the passions of her formerly remote uncle who drugs and assaults her, later telling her (falsely) that he had raped her and she must now marry him. After being rejected he commits suicide, leaving his estate to his 30-ish son. Viridiana leaves the nunnery to attempt to start a mission for the poor on a farm on the uncle's estate. Scenes of homeless people praying under her direction are explicitly contrasted with laborers renovating the estate under the son's paternalistic direction. When Viridiana leaves for the afternoon with the son, the homeless people pry into the estate house and a dinner using the 'good china' degenerates into a drunken orgy - as one character suggests, there is nothing wrong with sinning, since you can always repent. When Viridiana returns she is once again sexually assaulted. Somehow this has accustomed her to think favorably of men, since in the final scene she joins her cousin in a game of cards, deliberately flirting with him.

This 1961 film is generally regarded as the beginning of Bunuel's most important period; it won the Palme d'Or in Cannes. It's not as ugly (or as savage) as "Diary of a Chambermaid" but still not a film I'd recommend.

Movie Review: Franco financed this, which just makes it funnier!
Summary: 5 Stars

This was my first Bunuel movie, Fernando Rey plays Dom Jaime who is visited by his neice/a nun,Viridianna and is overcome with lust and drugs her so that he can have his way with her. He doesn't but confesses to her an d after she refuses to speak to him, he commits suicide. Leaving his estate to her and his nephew. She decides to run it as a utopia where beggers will work and earn their bread, his half is a modern farm. Very Bunuel, especially the beggars banquet/Last Supper.

Movie Review: Lo mejor de Buñuel
Summary: 5 Stars

El productor de esta cinta, no sabia nada de cine, pero sabia que no sabia, así que le dio carta libre a Buñuel para que hiciera lo que se le vinera en gana, y Buñuel que es un genio, no desaprobecho la ocación y saco esta joya del cine mundial que es Viridiana. Silvia Pinal esta formidable e irreconosible. Esta pelicula es una muestra de buen cine. Quiza lo unico que se le puede reclamar es que alarga demaciado algunas ecenas pero no se puede encontrar en donde se puderon haber cortado. Ideal para conocer a Buñuel o pera ver una buena pelicula.

Movie Review: Powerful, A Masterpiece.
Summary: 5 Stars

"Viridiana" is one of the greatest Foreign film works ever made. It is perfectly directed by the genius Luis Bunuel and has a richness in impact, story and visual style that makes this a film to view more than once. Bunuel gives us an effective psychological study and a look at a reality with eyes unblinking and near the end a dinner advances into a study of the savage side of man, of the animal in man. Here is a true work of cinematic genius. The mixture of cinematography, music, sets, costumes and the way Bunuel films the beautiful Silvia Pinal make the film hypnotic. Like the greatest directors, Bunuel made masterpieces taken from his own obsessions and thoughts and ideas and even dreams. Here is proof that a director can truly make a personal film that leaves a powerful impact and impression on the viewer. The film is dark, yet beautiful, even the title sounds beautifully artistic. Luis Bunuel remains the greatest surrealist mind of the cinema. "Viridiana" is evidence of why.