#242 – Viridiana, 1961, Luis Buñuel
Viridinia is preparing to start her life as a nun when she is sent, somewhat unwillingly, to visit to her aging uncle, Don Jaime. He supports her; but the two have met only once. Jaime thinks Viridinia resembles his dead wife. Virdinia has secretly despised this man all her life and finds her worst fears proven when Jaime grows determined to seduce his pure niece. Viridinia becomes undone as her uncle upends the plans she had made to join the convent.
#281 – Belle de Jour, 1967, Luis Buñuel
Beautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.
#470 – The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, (Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie), 1972, Luis Buñuel
In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined.
#484 – The Exterminating Angel, (El ángel exterminador), 1962, Luis Buñuel
After a lavish dinner party, the guests find themselves mysteriously unable to leave the room.
#616 – That Obscure Object of Desire, (Cet obscur objet du désir), 1977, Luis Buñuel
After dumping a bucket of water on a beautiful young woman from the window of a train car, wealthy Frenchman Mathieu, regales his fellow passengers with the story of the dysfunctional relationship between himself and the young woman in question, a fiery 19-year-old flamenco dancer named Conchita. What follows is a tale of cruelty, depravity and lies – the very building blocks of love.
#645 – The Young and the Damned, (Los olvidados), 1950, Luis Buñuel
A group of juvenile delinquents lives a criminal, violent life in the festering slums of Mexico City, among them the young Pedro, whose morality is gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others.
#686 – Tristana, 1970, Luis Buñuel
Tristana is a young Spanish woman left to the care of Don Lope, a protective but impoverished aristocrat. Don sells his possessions to avoid manual labor and champions the causes of the dispossessed and downtrodden of society. He takes advantage of the vulnerable Tristana, who leaves him when she falls in love with Horacio. Unable to commit to him, she returns to Don Lope when she falls ill. He asks for her hand in marriage, and she accepts after losing her leg to cancer. She chooses to remain in a passionless union rather than be subject to the harsh realities of a society that refuses to change to the needs of women. Taken from the novel by celebrated author Benito Perez Galdos.
#728 – L’Âge d’Or, 1930, Luis Buñuel
The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.
Jumbo Cactuar Film Index 