User reviews

...from Spain and provocative director Luis Bunuel. The people of the Las Hurdes region of Spain are shown in all of their starving and impoverished misery. Located roughly 60 miles from the well-off Province of Salamanca, Las Hurdes is rampant with disease and malnutrition. The camera captures the look of loss and hopelessness on the emaciated children's faces, and we see as they drink from a filthy river and eat meager portions of bread. This stuff is pretty raw, but there's a dispassionate distance courtesy of the matter-of-fact English-language narrator on the version I watched. There's also a couple of rough animal scenes (a goat falls down a cliff, and a donkey is killed by bees) that may be a deal breaker for some viewers. It is listed as one of the 1001 Movies to See Before You Die.

A surprising documentary in Luis Buñuel style that caused a big impact at the time, in fact it was banned by the Republican government for 1933-1939. It not is for all tastes, adding disagreeable images, but nonetheless masterfully done. It starts showing the little location Las Albercas, in Extremadura, where the population amuse themselves seeing as some horse riders beheading roosters hanging in a cord. Near Albercas spread across some small villages whose unfortunate residents live in extreme distress and real poverty. After that, we are watching the extreme poorness and misery of these surrounding villages with a large number of distressed villagers, surviving a diet of beans and potatoes only, with goat meat available in some year season . We are seeing sick villagers by bonzo illness with swell on their necks , little kids dying and a deceased baby being hardly transported by the locals to a far cemetery. And how the peasants attempt to survive at whatever means by hardly ever cultivating along the rivers and without the most basic utilities. Wrenching documentary, graphic and depressing, including disgusting scenes with unfortunate people suffering, abandoned children, and others in extreme poorness and isolation. The movie title concerns Las Hurdes, an isolated land from the outside world with no bread, due to they don't eat cereals and they hardly ever live thanks to little products and short food . Famine, extreme starving, polluted waters result in disabled generations, showing various people with mental and physical disabilities, as dwarf, nutty villagers and others.

Produced by Ramón Arcin, an anarchist who was shot and dead during Spanish Civil War (1936-1938). Arcin won in lottery and gave an amount of money to Buñuel for the production of this almost surrealist documentary Las Hurdes, that's how he made his way into film history . And well directed by Luis Buñuel, however, being accused by critics to be a documentary excessively manipulative and to carry out an animal slaughter. Buñuel defended, as he stated that he attempted to deliver a provoking message. After making this film, Buñuel exiled in USA where he worked in the Museum of Modern Art in N. Y. Later on, he exiled in Mexico. Shortly after, Buñuel exiled in Mexico, beginning his Mexican period. The first Mexico made film was Gran Casino with the singer idol Jorge Negrete and following The great madcap or El gran calavera with Fernando Soler . Later on, he made the successful Los olvidados that won several awards. The went on making other important movies, such as : The devil and the flesh, Mexican bus ride, The brute, El, Robinson Crusoe, A woman without love, Archibald Cruz, Evil Eden, Nazarin, The young one, The angel exterminator, Simon of the desert. And his French period including : Diary of a chambermaid, Belle de Jour, The milky way, Discreet charm of bourgeoise, The phantom of liberty. The exiled Spanish filmmaker also shot in Spain as Las Hurdes, Tristana , Viridiana and his last film : Obscure object of desire. Rating 8/10, better than average. The flick will appeal to Luis Buñuel enthusiasts. Essential and indispensable watching.

After Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or had caused such earthquakes, Bunuel picked for his next project a documentary on the Hurdanos. These people live in mid-western Spain, near the border of Portugal, under the most horendous conditions possible. They are a primitive, almost neolithic people, who only barely understand the principles of farming and are otherwise so superstitious as to starve themselves rather than eat any animals besides disease-carrying pigs.

Now, it is difficult to know how to take this film. Following Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or, I personally expected a comedy, and took it as that when I was watching it. If you read down, you will notice the first person who commented on the film takes it this way. My reasoning went thus: Bunuel saw the Hurdanos in his peculiar surrealist light. Here was a people degraded to the point of utter absurdity. For instance, there is a scene where the farmers are working in a place where adders are plentiful. The adders frequently bite them, but these bites are not fatal. They would eventually heal, but these people don't know that. Instead, they use a kind of ointment to cover the wound, and this treatment actually leads to infection, which eventually mangles or even kills them. In another scene, we are told that the children only know bread from the bits that the local church gives them. They are not allowed to take these bits of bread home because their parents don't trust bread, and will confiscate it and toss it out (this is what I read in an essay about the film; the version I watched had an English voiceover, whose explanation for the parents' actions was to steal the bread for themselves. I believe that the version in the essay is the more correct one).

The surrealist aspects of the scenes I mentioned are there. But, reading that aforementioned essay (and a second), I realize that I was wrong about the humor. Surrealism, you should note, does not = comedy. This is a more serious surrealism. In fact, Bunuel made the documentary as a political statement, showing how the Spanish government treated its people (in fact, he was wrong on this point; Franco idolized the area and had great sympathy for the people, believing them to represent the primitive aspects of Spain; in later decades, he would pour a lot of money into the region). It caused an upset, though not as much as the previous two films. I imagine that people then didn't know how to take it either, since many critics were up in arms over this apparently massive change in Bunuel's style. Nowadays, Las Hurdes seems better than ever before. It is an amazing documentary, and the people represented in it deserve our sympathy. I wonder if their lives have now changed. 9/10.

I have ancestors from my father side who are originally from Las Hurdes. The highlands were exactly like the documentary film portrays them. The lowlands slightly better off, The documentary helped them because the world focused on them and offered some help. Finally a cementery was built and food imported. Problem is the civil war that followed shortly afterwards. Buñuel was a surrealist film director who tried to shift towards realism after joining the communist party. The civil war against communists and fascists further increased poverty but no films were allowed for decades under the dictatorship 1936-1975

Luis Buñuel's approach to film-making was so unusual, and his intentions so hard to decipher, that you can never be quite sure what his movies were meant to convey. So it should probably not be too surprising that even when he makes a documentary it is still hard to tell exactly what he was doing. While this gives every initial appearance of being a straightforward documentary, it is not long before Buñuel's detailed yet surrealistic approach begins to show in subtle ways.

Whatever else may be true, it is an unusual film, and a generally interesting one. It is also unsettling - at times, very much so. It depicts a civilization that, though located in the midst of Spain just before the Franco era, could almost be from pre-historic times. Many of the images and much of the commentary are disturbing and uncomfortable to watch, to say the least. Yet the tone is far from emotional, and in fact it seems to be deliberately withdrawn, even unsympathetic, much of the time.

At the same time, it's easy to see why there are those who suggest that Buñuel was not filming a strictly objective documentary. While there are no outlandish or fantastical images, his distinctive style shows up in less obvious ways, through odd details and sequences. There also seem to be a number of different versions of the narration, which do not always cast events in the same light. So, as so often tends to be the cast with Buñuel, all that you can do is to watch it for yourself and then make your best guess as to what it all means.

In a world full of desperation and where the truth above all is endlessly sought by a vast majority that at the same time refuses to embrace a certain load of authenticity in people's acts, it comes as a shock that some refuse to see the what lies deep down behind "Las Hurdes". Naive or easily manipulated audiences of different periods might have seen in this short film something valuable, powerful, absurd in its reality while giving us the portrayal of a small town in Spain where people in the worst conditions of all, where technology and progress are just words in a dictionary they might not even had read or worst, they don't even know what is this. Those audiences get somewhat relieved that at its conclusion there's a disclaimer calling out for help, let's unite all the people and change this terrible reality where kids and people die of malaria, let's give work and food to this people and more, let's pressure the government, they must do their part. A more experienced audience, some of us in the present time, can and will see something far more terrible happening while everything is presented and realize that everything is happening under false pretensions.

The intended impact director Luis Buñuel wanted he got it since the film was banned by the Spanisy government for three years. Yes, those administrations (Franco dictatorship included) couldn't allow their people to see how behind some of their cities were and how poverty and misery was taking place. I mean, they could deny such thing happening or do something about it but let's not reveal the truth and ban the movie instead, they must have thought. There was the shock in putting in front of a camera a kid dying of a sickness, and bees attacking a poor donkey to death. Seeing the picture now isn't that fascinating. Instead, we get plenty of shocking value, very few knowledge and information, we realize that those poor people are nothing but actors (professional or not but actors), and everything seems to be manipulated for the sake of the humble people of Spain. It's quite obvious that the bees attack the donkey not because of some unfortunate accidents but because a human hand spread honey on the animal so that they could have such image to capture. Same thing goes to the most frightening part of this, a goat being pushed downhill. It doesn't fell on its own, it's clearly pushed over. Sure, it tries to paint this is as a positive thing, now the people will have something decent to eat. But no one's suffering really. It's just a propaganda.

However, since it's very contrary to the sense of film propaganda we've seen in "Triumph of the Will", the one seen in "Las Hurdes" ("Land without Bread") is one a little bit favorable. It's a false, desperate idea with a helpful purpose, destined to change a reality, to make it better. It's light years from the mockumentaries and documentaries that aren't so truth to life, quite a prank put on us. It's sad to see that Buñuel had to recur to such a hypocritical act to unfold its message, or at least he should have show less. Definitely he would get more. Gotta admire much of the way everything's filmed, how impressive everything is (except the sometimes overused narration). Those are first rate! He uses the cinema as an instrument of urgency, of something that can save lives, change the world, open minds, forget the surreal for a moment and back to the reality (even if it's not 100% but it's a little close). Too bad it backfired. Might have been the source of inspiration to other filmmakers. And you know what? It really was. The greatest Brazilian short film ever made "Ilha das Flores" released in 1989, shows us with humor and with a far more impressive taste a sad reality that is far more haunting than any shocking value developed here. In it, there's an island that is so poor but so poor that even the people there have to wait for the food the pigs refused to eat so they can eat. That's right. People back there were third class citizens, surpassed by some of the animals. The short caused some sensation, won awards and the situation has changed in the place. There's some rumors about this being also an hoax but if it is at least no one and nothing died on the making.

"Las Hurdes" is not a bad film. It's just filled with some bad taste aspects trying to reach the best possible intentions. I liked it but not that much. So far my least favorite picture of Buñuel and that's a lot considering how genial he could be. 6/10

I found it very interesting reading the reactions of others here, from interpreting this as everything from a pure comedy to a pure documentary. The truth is that it denies classification, and for many that just simply does not compute. Therefore, it has obviously done exactly what Bunuel wanted.

The aim of surrealism is to lure you in with the trap of a conventional narrative, and then hit you right in the face with something impossible to just passively accept. This film is the perfect example of this. You are absolutely forced into the role of active observer; forced to draw your own conclusions. Independent thought is pulled to the surface, returning comprehension to it's original purity. Reality lies not in what you are seeing, and not in what you are hearing, but somewhere in-between.

My God, this man was a genius, and so far ahead of his time it's unbelievable. Spielberg shows you what you want to see. Bunuel shows you what you need to see. Find this film and see it. Its value is incalculable.

Many here hsve commented this was a critique to Franco. At the time the civil war he won and consequently led him to take power had not even began. It was a critique of King Alfonso XIII the ruler back in 1932. Franco invested in the region. Make no mistake, the poverty and living conditions were REAL. He forced some situations - the goat, the baby and the bees, but based on previous facts thst he couldnt wait for them to happen the few days he was filming. The tittle appealed to the fact that bread was scarce and imported. I have ancestors that lived there. Most of my family live in the area and the conditions only improved because Franco invested in food and education whilst hiding the conditions from the rest of Spain

"Las Hurdes" may be the Surrealist documentary par excellence, a tendentious film discourse about poverty shot in Las Hurdes Altas, a human settlement out of a nightmare, among steep precipices, in an almost deserted landscape. Even based on Maurice Legendre's 1927 anthropological text "Las Jurdes: A Study of Human Geography", Buñuel forced into the harsh situations his own obsessions with insects and donkeys that would appall today any society for the protection of animals. Done at a time when Spain was among the nine countries with the highest level of economic development, by contrast this work shows the state of misery of a community marginalized by landowners, forgotten by authorities, and living in the cruelest of conditions. The cynic commentary makes the facts more striking, but the music score by Darius Milhaud is an obtrusive element. Although banned by the authorities, it was re-released with a Spanish narration read by actor Francisco Rabal.

This is the sort of film that only makes sense if you are deeply familiar with the context, and even then, it feels like an experiment without an explanation. It contains a lot of commentary of circumstances that were relevant at the time.

With this film, Bunuel manipulates the viewer with all of film's might while stating clearly in the film that his work is one of 'objectivity'. Obviously, it is not. For one reason, many scenes 'shot by pure chance' are obvious set-ups (when that poor goat 'accidently' falls off the cliff, you can actually see the gun smoke on the right of the screen!). For another, his concealing of one important information: the Hurdes people were the way they were for a specific reason which is just hinted at in the film. That is, goitre, a sickness caused by lack of iodine (salt). This goitre is the cause of their cretinism and had Bunuel only took the time to make his research (heck, if he checked 'cretinism' in a medical dictionary he'd have found 'goitre') he MIGHT have ended up telling the truth about these people (still, doubtfully). Instead, with his film, he judges them constantly, talking about them as 'cretins', again and again, dramatizing the action, setting-up scenes to create the spectacle, all of this very unacceptable for a documentarist which claims to work for an all-mighty objectivity. Bunuel talks all the time in this film, not letting one word to the people he is filming. He talks FOR them and, even then, JUDGES them. This piece is flawed to it's roots, to it's ideology and it's a real shame it's considered a great film.

Bunuel had always been a visionary man,his cinema had never stopped trying from "un chien andalou" to "le fantôme de la liberté"."las Hurdes " was a documentary ,but it made the genre explode.And,to think it was seventy years ago!

Near the Portuguese border,there's a part of Spain where a doomed humanity used to live.The beginning of "las hurdes" deals with a feast in a village,last stop before the Hurdes country.

Then Bunuel begins his unthinkable depiction of this subhumanity:morons,maimed persons,monsters with twelve fingers,living in a filth you could not imagine.They drink in the brook/sewer!Springtime which everybody enjoys elsewhere is the worst season for the "Hurdes":all that remains for them to eat is cherries.But they cannot wait that they ripen,so they contract dysentery and they fall like flies.

And ,however,in a world that God seems to have completely forgotten,the children learn at school that the sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees.And chiefly,they must respect the property of others(!). On the wall of the classroom,you can see a picture,showing an eighteen century marchioness!

Irony and surrealism are always here .After these horrors,out of the blue,Bunuel begins a lecture on the anopheles mosquito,complete with anatomical charts.

Banned by the Spanish government in 1933-1935,it took the Popular front(1936)to release what was the first social and political documentary.

I saw this movie with absolutely no idea what it would be about or when this movie was made, only that it was made by Luis Bunuel, and I felt I HAD to at least have seen 1 movie made by the man so many people see as one of the many movie gods.

I must add that before seeing Las Hurdes ("Land Without Bread") in the theatre where I saw it, they had programmed the documentary "Bunuel's Prisoners". In which the people of the Hurdes region comment on the movie and the circumstances under which this movie came to be. This movie gave me enough information to watch the main feature (Las Hurdes) with a much more realistic view than if I had seen this movie without seeing the doumentary first.

In the documentary several people express their annoyance and irritation with the manner in which Bunuel has twisted and fabricated some of the scenes in the actual movie/documentary. The goat falling from the cliff is not exactly falling per accident and the "dead" baby in one of the last scenes is not dead at all (this can be seen by watching the moving chest of the baby).

All in all I enjoyed this slightly fictional documentary very much and I recommend everybody to go see it. It will either make you laugh out loud at times and leave you deeply disturbed at other times.

A must for people who are not allergic to foreign movies from before WW2. 9/10

In a sense, I felt really bad after I saw surrealist Luis Bunuel's third film Land Without Bread (or Las Hurdes), since the imagery and cold, distanced, but un-cannily sympathetic narrative reminded me of the commercials on TV for starving children in Africa and abroad. For a person such as myself seeing this for the first time in this year, when technologies and replenishments are never far from reach, this village pulls at one's heart-strings, and not just in the manipulative Sally Struthers-esque style either.

Bunuel uses half an hour to create a historical document with the emotional weight of Resnais Night and Fog, however for a different cause. Though Resnais was making an indictment of society not paying attention at the time to the horrors of the holocaust, and Bunuel is showing day-to-day life in a primitive society, the two films share a quality- these are views of humanity that Government does (or rather did) suppress, and at the least it brought me to an existential catharsis. How is it that people such as the Hurdanos stand to live like this?

But that's not to say Land Without Bread is as bleak as a Bergman film being screened for a group of methadone addicts. It is, after all, a Bunuel film, and the sense of surrealism that certainly didn't die down after his great works of art Un Chien Andalou and L'Age D'Or is present. The way he cuts to certain images, however real as can be, take on at times a sub-reality. If one ventures into this film not knowing it was conceived as a filmed document, and is perhaps cynical to believe the stone buildings and desolate, starving, doomed-looking people aren't residents of the area, one could think this is another fictional attempt by Bunuel to take jabs (vicious ones) at the Spanish government (leader Franco, who later changed his policies over the region).

It IS real, however, and once it started to dawn on me that the editing and some of the camera moves were a kin to surrealism, though over all these stark, true images, I felt the power of it and of the desperation. Now, seventy-two years after it was current events, Land Without Bread stands not only as a brief history and (as Bunuel considers it) geography lesson, but as an artistic triumph- Bunuel nails the points down and leaves faces and landscapes that etched into one's consciousness. You may feel sad after the film is over, or maybe glad that you're living in the time and place you are now. Any way to look at it, it's a worthwhile film to see.

My first viewing of this, one of the most famous and ground-breaking documentaries ever made and Bunuel's last released work for virtually 15 years, was via the "Films Sans Frontieres" DVD of LOS OLVIDADOS (1950) - on which it was included as an extra (albeit without the benefit of English subtitles). Eventually, I obtained another copy for which these were available: however, given the broken English utilized throughout, it was still not the most congenial way to watch the film!

Although it might seem downright strange that a director notorious for his anarchic and surrealistic traits would be interested in shooting a sociological documentary, it is no wonder that the power of LAND WITHOUT BREAD lies in its equally extraordinary and shocking visuals depicting the state of extreme poverty in which the people from the mountain regions of Spain lived. They often get sick from drinking contaminated water, while others are afflicted with malaria or get stung by insects and eventually die from maltreated wounds; their overall conditions are so dire, in fact, that they tend to look older than their age. The lack of hygiene and propensity for incestuous relationships has also resulted in an abundance of deformed kids within the population, while the corpses of dead babies are left floating down the riverbanks – 22 years prior to Bunuel's own DEATH AND THE RIVER!

Being an animal lover, then, I was most affected by the scenes depicting a goat falling to its death from a rocky cliff and a donkey attacked, after tripping, by bees which have broken free from the hives the former was carrying; learning after the fact that both incidents were deliberately 'staged' for the (rather than fortuitously caught on) camera does not diminish their effect but actually serves to anticipate Bunuel's consistent blurring of documentary with fiction and reality with dreams in his future films. Interestingly enough, a much-later feature-length documentary about the making of this one – entitled BUNUEL'S PRISONERS (2000) – decried, through the reaction of the villagers themselves, the director's ruthless tactics in striving for 'phoney' realism!

As if this was not irony enough, LAS HURDES (the film's original title, named after the godforsaken area where it was shot over a two-month period) was a French production financed by a friend's money won in a lottery. Besides, it features an epilogue which, if anything, exposes Bunuel's naïve Communist ideals and, almost inevitably, Spain's fascist government enforced a 3-year ban on the film and, possibly, were responsible for its revamped (sporting a more objective narration) release under the new moniker of UNPROMISED LAND! Ultimately, the true legacy of this highly divisive work is less its political commentary or sociological content and more its unique subversion of the then-popular travelogue format which slowly paved the way for the "mockumentaries" prevalent in Cinema's last 30 years.

Las Hurdes is one of the most disturbing, and most hilarious, films ever, and was so far ahead of its time that modern flirtations with the absurd and with black comedy pale in comparison. Ostensibly a documentary, it gradually betrays its subversiveness and we understand that it is a manufactured reality. In a memorably cruel moment, a goat tumbles off the side of a steep slope it is climbing after the narrator describes the precariousness of its climb. The puff of smoke that appears in frame just before the goat falls tells us that the goat had some help from the film crew in falling off the cliff. This film is brilliant and depraved and will either have you laughing hysterically or feeling rather upset, or possibly both.

Luis Bunuel, a Spanish director who made films in his home country, France, United States and Mexico, where the most of his films are made in. He is the master of surrealism and did several fictional films, but only one documentary, Las Hurdes (1933, Land Without Bread). It shows the life of a poor village in Spain. The cruelty we see feels so real and distressing that the film was banned in Spain and in many other countries. That is the reason why it (still in 2010) hasn't got a Spanish commentary. The original audio commentary is in French.

In the citizens of Las Hurdes there are many cripples, midgets and simple-minded people, in result of lack of hygiene, misery and incest. The survival of these people is very uncertain, only one thing is certain: death that waits all of them. The most pathetic form of documentary is tourist film (documentaries where people travel to exotic places and describe the culture). Las Hurdes follows the presentation of the tourist film, it gives us information of the place's history, a summary of geography, education, nutrition and sicknesses. Of course each of us who knows Luis Bunuel, is aware that Las Hurdes isn't even close to a shallow tourist film.

Luis Bunuel simply and ruthlessly notes the facts. He films what goes on the country, by letting nothing out. He has announced that he is an atheist, and it can be seen in the film (and generally in his all films). The film shows the incredibly cruelty the people have to deal in their lives, but then it shows us how the morality and religion are pretty much same as in our lives. They have faith, even how miserable their life seems. And there is something holy in this film. Not from religion or a set-up, but from humanity - the holiness of humanity. There is something very humane in Las Hurdes. The thing that makes it is probably the fact that all unnecessary things are cut out from the film. Only the things that matter are shown to us, and that is what makes the film so powerful.

We see the people farm grain, eat, study and play games, which are incredibly cruel actually. We see how their life resembles our life. It also makes us think of our responsibility in this misery. Why do we have the right to live a more wealthy life? A very evocative film. Las Hurdes - Land Without Bread shows men, women, children and animals dying. It shows us so realistic images that they start to turn into surrealistic nightmares. The film was banned because of this, because of the horrors it shows. And that is something so two faced. The same thing is with the animal industry - we aren't allowed to see what happens because it might horrify some of us. In Las Hurdes we aren't allowed to see the cruelty happening to the people - it would certainly show the country in a negative light.

An amazing documentary by the master of surrealism, Luis Bunuel. Perhaps one of the greatest documentaries ever made, and still it is the only documentary Bunuel ever made. Leaves you speechless.

Some people are celebrating this movie as a fantastic documentary. It's not. As a documentary it would be pretty useless and the people celebrate is as such, hasn't really gotten the point (although they wish they would have).

Las Hurdes a hilarious comedy and at the same time an interesting experiment with the nature of film making and it's possibilities to represent reality, as well as distorting it. Las Hurdes is probably the first pseudo-documentary and as such it is both genius and extremely funny, in a bizarre Month Python-way. 8,5/10

I have been frustrated by the version of the film that is available in my area, entitled "Unpromised Land". The original "Tierra sin Pan" has a completely different commentary which is made "politically correct" in the "Unpromised" version. Avoid "Unpromised Land" as it censors and alters the original intent of the film as conceived by Bunuel!

Unsettling and confusing, primarily because of the stilted narrative. Since it's Buñuel, you should know better than to take it at face value. The tip-off comes early, in the odd phrase, "the expedition meets a choir of idiots," with no choir of any kind visible and a jump cut to another scene. Throughout the film, as the pompous voice drones on, odd things continue. We look into the mouth of a girl reported to be dying of inflamed gums; it looks healthy enough. We are shown impeccably groomed children and told they are dressed in filthy rags. By the time we are shown a child and told, "This man is 28 years old," it's become obvious that some serious leg-pulling is going on. Yet it's all set in an unfaked location known for its extreme poverty. Naturally, Buñuel never wastes an opportunity to aim his deadly sniper fire at the Catholic church and other purveyors of an inequitable system that ensures that the peasants of Las Hurdes will remain securely malnourished and undereducated. It's got to be one of the strangest exploitation pictures ever made, which is of course a big part of the point.

Read the full review at Cinema 1001. This movie is #77 in the Schneider list of 1001 Movies.