Susana (1953)

Susana is the story of a delinquent girl who escapes from detention and hides out on a remote finca a Spanish American plantation. There she destroys a rigid uptight family with her immoral scheming and feminine wiles. Despite being a neorealistic melodrama Susana displays a surrealist's fascination with subversion sexuality and illusory conventions. "...absurdities and contradictions indicate that the truly important work is taking place at a latent level beneath the surface of the story" (Tomas Perez Turrent Mexican Cinema). In Spanish with English subtitles.System Requirements:Running Time: 86 mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: FOREIGN/SPANISH UPC: 736899111328 Manufacturer No: DV94844 Product Description

Soap Opera Surrealism?

A woman is dragged into a reform school for girls. We are not told what she has done, but apparently, it's bad enough to be a rough, hardcore solitary prison cell. She prays for a miracle and breaks free. She comes upon a Mexican hacienda occupied by a super nice and decent family, complete with ranch help. Using her beauty, she proceeds to wreak havoc by separately seducing each of the male members on the ranch, then pitting them against each other. What are the other women - the estate owner's wife and head maid - to do? The movie slowly builds to a maddening crescendo, leaving us to wonder who will get the boot from the estate and who will be the last to remain standing; will decency triumph over lust?

Luis Bunuel, director of Un Chien Andalou and L'Age D'Or - two surrealistic masterpieces that involved Salvador Dali in the production and were seen as the birth of experimental cinema - made this film in 1951. It is uncharacteristically "normal" on the surface. In fact, if you didn't look at the credits, it could have just as well been a soap opera. It has an age old story and themes most people can relate to: Does beauty blind people? Will youth trump experience? Will might make right? Can book smarts outsmart feminine wiles?

Once you discover Luis Bunuel was behind the camera, then you start recognizing all the surrealist themes. There's the all-out assault on establishment. Then there's the individual dream state each man enters under the spell of Susana; her beauty is really a vehicle for Bunuel to question the integrity of sight, and how easily we can be deceived. There's also that earthy fascination with dirt on a human body, and of course: that wonderful recurring jingling sound in Bunuel films, now embodied in the spurs.

All in all, an entertaining film. It shows that our man behind the curtains could have effortlessly gone mainstream had he chose to. Just don't expect razor blades, exploding eyeballs, or body doubles in parallel universes. June 14, 2008

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