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uosdwisrdewoh's review
4.0
For someone who’s listened to the Pixies’s “Debaser” countless times, I was unacceptably ignorant of Luis Buñuel, who made those images of slicing up eyeballs that Frank Black howls about, that is until I read this little graphic novel, which serves as a fine introduction to Buñuel’s life and work.
In this book, Fermín Solís follows Luis Buñuel in the making of Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan in 1932. We watch along with Buñuel’s crew as the legendary filmmaker blends fiction and documentary in his film about a godforsaken corner of Spain where to call it hardscrabble would be generous. How do you portray such abject poverty without taking advantage of those you portray? Buñuel doesn’t trouble himself too much with these concerns—he’s too concerned with making a statement that shocks the conscience in line with his previous surreal work—but his crew certainly has to reckon with them.
For a book portraying a man so committed to the cause of Surrealism, it’s a well-told, naturalistic portrait of a moment in time when artistic movements could capture the imagination and inspire waves of scandal and condemnation, as Las Hurdes did in Spain, where it was banned. Only a few times does the narrative shift into dreamscapes, including at the opening, which led me to believe this would be the dominant storytelling framework. Fortunately it’s not, especially since Solis’s cartooning really shines in the quiet moments, like the extended scene of Buñuel and a friend traipsing around Paris searching for an open bar.
This took over a decade to be translated and published in English, years after it was even adapted into an animated feature. I’m glad Self-Made Hero finally published it. Everything I’ve sampled from them has been great; watch out for them, they’re quietly becoming a real presence in indie comics.
rebus's review
3.5
I was never a fan of Bunuel's work, wholly unable to appreciate its importance when I studied film in college in the early 80s (my opinion has not changed). His life story, however, is far more interesting and illuminating, but perhaps not in a good way.
It turns out that Bunuel was merely another spoiled rich kid full of neuroses and entitlement who was living off of his parent's money and who was a drunk posing as an anarchist. He had serious daddy issues, feared the intellectual elite that made up the surrealist movement and sought revenge against them by using crime and scandal against the bougie Capitalist elite. Passe, even for his time.
His intellectual deficit is apparent in his agreeing with Neruda that to be successful one must become fat, which sounds more like what a lazy, bourgeoisie, Capitalist would say and do (his pal Ramon agreed and said it sounded like what Bishops and Bakers would do). That viewpoint is utterly repulsive.
Luis said that dressing up like a nun was a passionate experience, but this too is the view of the sorts of idiots and assholes who believe in fetish clubs or who dress up for Halloween and find it interesting. Meh. It no more allows one to see life from another perspective than standing atop a hill and viewing something from a great distance. Neither act can ever truly emulate the desired human experience and the act is intellectually bankrupt (which is why posers like Barbara Ehrenreich are so repulsive).
He claimed to admire the 'natural man' who was free of all social prejudices and saw law and establishment society as arbitrary--good Anarchist views--but he NEVER once in his life experienced such things, instead living the life of a rich, bored, city dwelling intellectual who would no sooner give up his pursuit of alcohol, women, and carousing than he would is eye (pun intended). He also thought that DeSade was a revolutionary who thought minds must be cleansed of all natural shame--another great foundation of Anarchist theory--but in practice neither did so to any great degree and Bunuel failed to realize that this shame is inculcated into us by the very society he was so integrated into.
I liked the book, but I rated it lower than perhaps it deserves, simply because I feel that the vast majority of readers will not interpret it correctly, and the authors were worshipful of Bunuel and his bad work and even worse ideology.
He is, in the end, a tragically stupid figure who never really produces anything of any worth, and almost nothing at all after the work which he was engaged in on the project depicted here.
It turns out that Bunuel was merely another spoiled rich kid full of neuroses and entitlement who was living off of his parent's money and who was a drunk posing as an anarchist. He had serious daddy issues, feared the intellectual elite that made up the surrealist movement and sought revenge against them by using crime and scandal against the bougie Capitalist elite. Passe, even for his time.
His intellectual deficit is apparent in his agreeing with Neruda that to be successful one must become fat, which sounds more like what a lazy, bourgeoisie, Capitalist would say and do (his pal Ramon agreed and said it sounded like what Bishops and Bakers would do). That viewpoint is utterly repulsive.
Luis said that dressing up like a nun was a passionate experience, but this too is the view of the sorts of idiots and assholes who believe in fetish clubs or who dress up for Halloween and find it interesting. Meh. It no more allows one to see life from another perspective than standing atop a hill and viewing something from a great distance. Neither act can ever truly emulate the desired human experience and the act is intellectually bankrupt (which is why posers like Barbara Ehrenreich are so repulsive).
He claimed to admire the 'natural man' who was free of all social prejudices and saw law and establishment society as arbitrary--good Anarchist views--but he NEVER once in his life experienced such things, instead living the life of a rich, bored, city dwelling intellectual who would no sooner give up his pursuit of alcohol, women, and carousing than he would is eye (pun intended). He also thought that DeSade was a revolutionary who thought minds must be cleansed of all natural shame--another great foundation of Anarchist theory--but in practice neither did so to any great degree and Bunuel failed to realize that this shame is inculcated into us by the very society he was so integrated into.
I liked the book, but I rated it lower than perhaps it deserves, simply because I feel that the vast majority of readers will not interpret it correctly, and the authors were worshipful of Bunuel and his bad work and even worse ideology.
He is, in the end, a tragically stupid figure who never really produces anything of any worth, and almost nothing at all after the work which he was engaged in on the project depicted here.
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