by Aric HarrisonWhen Luis Buñel passed away in July of 1983 the New York Times described him as "an iconoclast, moralist, and revolutionary leader of avant-garde surrealism.” Throughout his career Buñel had meticulously crafted a style of experimental filmmaking that was as intellectual as it was visceral. Two filmmakers that praised Buñel for his auteur style were John Huston, who believed that, “regardless of genre, a Buñuel film is so distinctive as to be instantly recognizable” and Ingmar Bergman who said that, "Buñuel nearly always made Buñuelian films." One of the most Buñuelian sequences in all of his bizarre oeuvre is the ending of Simón of the Desert. This forty-three minute masterpiece is based on a real life historical figure, Simeon the Stylite, who was a 5th century Syrian hermit. He spent 39 years of his life standing on columns, and praising the Lord in prayer. Historically, and in the film, Simón is confronted with many temptations from Satan and with the mental/physical effects of his asceticism. Buñel is making a direct attack on intense devotion by exemplifying it in such an extreme way.
It is so fascinating that Buñel, a very content atheist, would make such a spectacular religious film. Any casual viewer could easily mistake this film to be advocating true religious worship, when in fact it is advocating a mass exodus from organized religion. To be fair, God can’t truly condemn any serious atheist. They pay far more attention to him than any of his believers do. The question that Buñel, the great provocateur, is querying through his film is whether the ascetic is a paragon of humanity, or a self- indulgent masochist? Does asceticism do any good for the human race? When you are starving yourself from the fruits of the world, and from human experience can you really contribute a positive effect on the world around you, or do you just feel the internal satisfaction of self-indulgence? Simón exclaims “More welcome is slander to the pious soul than odious eulogies.” In the final sequence of the film, Simón and Satan are transported from a small ancient Mexican village, through a beautiful surreal montage that begins with the arrival of a modern airplane, into a glorious metropolis abounding with skyscrapers and nightlife. Sitting in a music club with trimmed beard and modern clothes, Simón sadly observes the convulsions of the young and liberated. “What is this dance?” Simón asks the Devil. She responds enthusiastically: “It’s called ‘radioactive flesh’! It’s the latest dance – the final dance.” Simón has been sent to witness the end of the world, and everybody is having fun except him. Buñuel himself, said in the final chapter of his autobiography that “we now have enough nuclear bombs not only to destroy all life on the planet but also to blow the planet itself, empty and cold, out of its orbit altogether” – a concept that he found “magnificent”. When Armageddon comes, it’ll be hard to say what, exactly, our species’ ascetics ever did to prevent it.
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ContributorsThe contributors for Cashiers of Cinema are a menagerie of creators devoted to Radical Aesthetics. Meetings are held at the dumpster behind Winkie's. Archives
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