Viriditas

Viridiana: Buñuel, 1961

So many things have been said about this film, must have been said, that I am at a loss of what to say that could be worth reading.

I guess what fascinates me is the idea of people living such unique, idiosyncratic lives and the poetry of their struggle to survive in the real world. I can already sense that this article will feel fragmented. The beauty of this film is that  Viridiana is so innocently absurd in a world that is terribly absurd. The difference is that she is on the other side of the fence of modernity. I guess you could call it a film from the fringes of modern society, from those few places where modernity is resisted and rejected by an entirely different world view. This is not a time for poets or for saints. The poets of today must be born from drug addicts, thieves and consumers, not at all hermits or saints.

Without going into detail, this is in the same spirit as Justine, but here the rape and abuse is not graphic, only implied. I mean violence to her moral self, to her soul, not to her body, violence to the way she interprets the world, to her interpretation of life and meaning. Ultimately, modernity is just as violent and empty as the Middle Ages. Society is hilariously insane because it pretends that human nature can fit in without breaking its bones. Watching this film as a triumph over conservative Spain is foolish.

I wonder how many people pretend to really understand art, pretend for their entire lives, as critics, as creators. How many won’t admit they don’t really understand and would rather indulge in a guilty pleasure. Maybe that is why this and all his films should be burnt. Does it sound like a surreal pose? I agree. But Buñuel said it towards the end of his life. Was it a joke? Does it matter? Better to be hungry, better to find the new, ancient revolutions. They are still there. Why waste time idealizing an artist? Do museums really make a difference? Burn them to the ground and start over. The heart of an artist must not be afraid to be a funeral pyre. Grab what you can from the ashes and start over.

Edipo Re

Pasolini , 1967

Creo que el ver cine es un ejercicio en vivir la memoria. Reviso estas paginas y voy recuperando y re-encontrando una experiencia pasada, que como buena memoria, se rehace en un presente que duda hacia el futuro, antes de redoblarse al pasado instantáneo. Es decir, el cine es como un sueño que se interpone en la vida y se ancla en la experiencia humana, abarcando todo su espacio, si quiere, y tambien su tiempo, el de toda su existencia.

Hablemos de esta pelicula. Se confunde con su poesia la poesia de la tragedia. Se encuentra en lo increible, lo abrumador en el misterio. No entiendo, pero gozo, porque a pesar de entender o no entender, las imagenes conmueven el alma y la rascan. Para que entrar en la autopsia, la biopsia de sus simbolismos. Que Edipo intenta huir del destino implacable, que su colera se reduce a un espacio circular de vida mas alla de la tragedia, que el final es increible y va mas alla del cuento, que la historia es simple y tenaz, que el tiempo se rompe, que todo parece un error, que mis palabras no alcanzan a tapar la luz tremendamente naranja y las sombras que suspiran purpura y azul, que senti como un milagro tremendo, que ya me canze de escribir esta inutil letania de torpezas.

El cine de verdad, en verdad, es abstracto, es misterio.

Y ahora la nota critica, es decir, vanidosa. Pasolini no me impresiono con el Decameron ni con sus Cuentos de Cantenbury, pero ahora si. Como una gran rueda tallada, me recubrio con la inscripcion de su alma, de su caracter de artista tremendo.