Buñuel, 70 years ago the intuition of telling toxic love (score 8) – Corriere.it

Today we would call it a “toxic male”, very toxic indeed. Seventy years ago, with many other sensitivities on the subject, he was “just” a paranoid male, but the substance does not change:
«El» (He) Of Luis Bunuelwhich after its presentation at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival comes now distributed for the first time in Italy (from the Cineteca di Bologna, in a perfect copy restored and subtitled) is one of the representations clearer and more pressing how bad the idea of ​​man’s possession of woman can do, especially when it is masked by love.

Why the genius of the film is precisely in the choice not to tell a case of everyday psychopathology, with all the risks (justifications, extenuating circumstances, excuses) that it can bring along, but to observe the behaviors with the lucidity and coldness of the entomologist, of the scientist who doesn’t get emotionally involved. Since the opening scenes, set in the church, during the foot washing of Holy Thursday, which the protagonist don Francisco Galván (Arturo de Córdova) attends as a Knight of the Holy Sacrament: it is in that world, in that logic imbued with Catholic formalism And bourgeois decorum, that he will seek justifications or in any case defenses for his behavior, where the male must never question his actions. As Buñuel explains perfectly when don Francisco returns home: he discovers that the butler Pablo (Manuel Dondé) has heavily annoyed a waitress and he decides to fire the woman.

Sure, the protagonist has one pathological fascination for female feet: we find out during Lenten washing, when her look after you observed the feet of the catechumens he passes to the women sitting nearby and is fascinated by those of Gloria (Delia Garcés). But basically Buñuel (who will also do this fetishism its brand image: see “Ecstasy of a crime” And «Viridiana» until his triumph in “Diary of a Maid”) here above all wants to underline the strength of the male gaze, the one that will upset Gloria and make her break her engagement with Raúl (Luis Beristáin). And that will be the start ofodyssey of the woman, unable to put an end to outbursts of jealousy totally unjustified with which don Francisco will start a obsess her since their honeymoon.

The film shows us some of them, all the more amazing the more violent (it is no coincidence that Jacques Lacan decided to show the film during his university courses), but it is above all in the reactions of the mother-in-law (Aurora Walker) and the priest (Carlos Martínez) to the requests for help of the woman that the film puts before our eyes lunassailable supremacy of the male. Even Gloria’s mom takes her side, not to mention the priest who gets to stamp di “indecency” the way she dances: in other words, the Family and the Church team up to support the idea of ​​”macho” and push the woman to accept whatever her husband does.

Of course you can’t shrink the movie only to the portrait of male toxicity. Buñuel is one of the greats of cinema and his hand can also be seen in this film shot in Mexico in 1952 for little money and in just three weeks. The ways in which Don Francisco tries or imagines (with Don Luis one is never sure of what one sees) would suffice kill his wife to be conquered by a direction that plays with the expectations of the public for later surprise him suddenly.

Will we ever really know if Gloria can somehow justify jealousy of the husband? But in the end is it important to establish it? «El» is a film built in the image of Don Francisco’s house, where «nothing is dictated by reason but everything is given feelingsgive her emotions and frominstinct», perfectly balanced between comedy and tragedy, where the bizarre appears suddenly (what is Pablo looking for in the dusty closet during a reception?) and where love suddenly reveals a face you don’t expect. That of a masterpiece not to be missed.