Summary:

Nazarin is a priest, attempting to living a pure and honest life strictly according to Christian principles - but others only show him distrust and hatred, apart from the local prostitute...Source

Review:

A surrealist Spanish take on the Jesus story. Haunting and engaging, Bunuel at his finest.

Screens (click for larger image):

Product Links:

Summary:

In Paris, 1900, two friends, Jules (Austrian) and Jim (French) fall in love with the same woman, Catherine. But Catherine loves and marries Jules. After WWI, when they meet again in Germany, Catherine starts to love Jim... This is the story of three people in love, a love which does not affect their friendship, and about how their relationship envolves with the years. Source

Review:

Beautiful, poetic and most certainly French (part of the reason I like it so much).

Screens (click for larger image):

Product Links:

Since the dawning of the age of psychoanalysis we have known that art provides a window on to the subconscious life of its creators. The passionate Romantics with their preoccupation with erotic power and with death, the anguished Expressionists, the Surrealists with their use of `automatic writing' and dream imagery, the Abstract Expressionists who recorded their emotive outpourings on canvases splattered like the ink-blots of the psychiatrist Rorschach - all these invite us to read in them the patterns of the human psyche.

Summary:

Don Jaime lives alone in his manor. His wife died from a heart attack on the wedding night. He has paid the gift and education so that his wife's niece Viridiana could become a nun, and wants her to visit him for a few days before she takes her final vow. She strikingly resembles her aunt and is persuaded to take on her wedding dress. Then he asks her to marry him. When she refuses, sleeping pills are put in her coffee. Jaime only decently fondles her. One the next day she leaves but is brought back by the police. Jaime had made a trap that might lead to another marriage. He acknowledges his "bastard" son Jorge, writes a will making his manor the common property of him and Viridiana, and hangs himself. Jorge starts modernising agricultural methods. Viridana gives free food and housing to many beggars. When Jorge and Viridiana must go away to see a lawyer, the beggars succeed in entering the locked great house. They make a banquet, but eventually beat asunder many things. When the owners return, most beggars leave the house forever. But one of them binds Jorge to a wall-cupboard and tries to rape Viridiana. Jorge promises another beggar money if he kills the rapist. He does so. One later evening when all is calm Viridiana goes to Jorge. Source

Review:

Beautiful, like all of Bunuel's great film works. Shocking in it's day mostly for what's implied rather than explicitly shown, it's a story about ideals and their realistic application (or maybe what you would call corruption?). Download or get your hands on a copy somehow!

Screens (click for larger image):

Product Links:

Summary:

A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent and crime-filled life in the festering slums of Mexico City, and the morals of young Pedro are gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others...Source

Review:

This has been compared to the NeoRealist The Bicycle Thief - but I have to say that Bunuel's classic touched me deeper. This film touched my heart and I identified with the humanity of all the poverty-stricken (financially and emotionally) characters. There is a surreal dream sequence that's breathtaking (check the screens below). A highly recommended classic!

Screens (click for larger image):

Product Links: