User reviews

"Nazarin" directed by Luis Bunuel presents an extraordinary view of religion in Mexico. As written by the director and Julio Alejandro, his notable collaborator, this was a film that put Mexican cinema in the international map after receiving the Grand Prix in Cannes that year. It's a disturbing film because Mr. Bunuel delves deep into what's wrong with the church.

Nazarin, by all reckoning, is a saint. This young priest is seen living a life of poverty in a seedy pension of a city. He doesn't have enough for himself, but he doesn't mind parting with a coin when a beggar appears by his window asking for help. At the same time, he takes into his small room a prostitute that has been hurt in a fight with another woman. Andara, the woman repays his kindness by burning the room and the whole building! Nazarin is seen taking to the countryside begging for food. Andara and Beatriz, two prostitutes from his old town follow him. Nazarin's life parallels that of Jesus. In fact, this saintly figure makes a case for humility.

Of course,Mr. Bunuel had no religion in mind when he and Mr. Alejandro took it upon themselves to create this film. It's ironic how Spain welcomed him after this film was released because they saw it as showing Christian qualities, when in reality, this is an acerbic satire on the catholic church and its ministers.

Francisco Rabal, the Spanish actor, makes a wonderful Nazarin. This was one of his best roles. Mr. Rabal worked extensively in his native country, but also in Mexico and Argentina. Rita Macedo, as Andara, is also excellent. Marga Lopez also makes a valuable contribution with her portrayal of Beatriz.

A great film by one of the cinema's master film makers: Luis Bunuel.

When you look at Mexico's best movies you will more than likely find that the Photography was performed by Gabriel Figueroa. He is recognized in the world as one of the best that have ever existed. His master control of the cameras gave an added asset to the movies he was part of. If added to his participation we add the direction of Luis Bunuel, you will never find such a pair of aces anywhere else in the world. This story, Nazarin, was written by Spain's greatest writer besides Miguel de Cervantes(Don Quijote de la Mancha). The story in itself is superb: Nazarin a priest that lives by his beliefs tries to live a very Christian life, but as always there are people that do not accept this. He wanders through many places preaching his Christianity but finding, most of the time, people that do not accept him. But besides the splendid story, it is always interesting to try to interpret the enigmatic messages that Bunuel sends us throughout the picture in scenes that make you shiver.

Octavio Paz, Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990, said about "Nazarin": "Nazarin follows the great tradition of mad Spaniards originated by Cervantes. His madness consists in taking seriously great ideas and trying to live accordingly". A humble and spiritual priest (Francisco Rabal in a wonderful performance) attempts to live by the principles of Christianity but is cast out of his church for helping a local prostitute by giving her a shelter after she had committed a murder. Nazarin wanders the country roads of the turn of the 20th-century Mexico, offering help to poor and begging for food. His two followers, a murderous prostitute Andara and her sister Beatriz who is a failed suicide desperately searching for love, consider him saint but it does not prevent him from hatred and humiliation from both the church and the people he meets on the road. He ends up beaten in prison and begins to question his faith for not be able to forgive his attacker.

Bunuel tells the story in a manner of a Christian parable masterfully and uniquely combining admiration and irony for the main character and strong criticism of formal religion and hypocrisy. The film is simple and profound as well as beautiful, ironic, and heartbreaking.

I consider Bunuel one of the best filmmakers ever. I've seen twenty of his films and they all belong to the different periods of his life but they have in common his magic touch, the masterful combination of gritty realism and surrealism, his curiosity, his inquisitive mind, his sense of humor, and his dark and shining fantasies. With great pleasure I am adding little seen and almost unknown but amazingly candid and touching surrealistic tragic-comedy "Nazarin" to the list of my favorite films.

In his films about morality and the church such as Viridiana, director Luis Bunuel has attacked the self-deception of those whose "pure" Christianity comes into conflict with the demands of society. In the masterful 1958 film Nazarin, Father Nazario (Francisco Rabal), a Catholic Priest, tries to imitate Christ by living a life of self-denial. He surrounds himself with prostitutes, beggars, thieves, and dwarfs and freely shares his meager resources with others but finds that his actions only produce distressing results. Based on the novel by Benito Perez Galdos, the film is about a gentle but sanctimonious priest in rural Mexico in 1900.

Naively unconcerned with his own best interests, he provides refuge to Andara (Rita Macedo), a prostitute who has just killed another street girl in a knife fight. When he also befriends Andara's sister Beatriz (Marga Lopez), suspicions arise among his superiors about his behavior. Forced to leave the church, he remains steadfast in his beliefs, going on the road dressed as a peasant and begging for alms. The sister's soon join him as disciples in his saintly pilgrimage after a dying girl regains her health as a result of his prayers. Nazarin's best intentions prove fruitless, however. He agrees to work on a road crew for food but in so doing creates a labor dispute that leads to violence. His guidance is again rejected when he volunteers to help a woman dying of the plague, asking her to picture what Heaven looks like. In spite of the priest's equation of sexual desire with sin, all she wants is one more visit from her husband and lover. Arrested and thrown into prison with Andara, Nazarin's life becomes more and more Christ-like in its agony. He is beaten by a thug and begins to question his faith when he is unable to forgive his assailant.

Is Father Nazario an impractical fool trying to live by unrealistic ideals, or is he a modern-day Christ, sentenced by a soulless world to endure a similar fate? Bunuel sends us mixed messages. He attacks the hypocrisy of the church for not living up to the teachings of Christ and seems to admire the priest for his rebellion against accepted social norms. Yet ultimately Nazario is just a sad and forlorn human being. Condemned by the church as a "nonconforming rebel", scorned by a society that does not understand his passion, he carries his "crown of thorns" to an uncertain end, perhaps realizing at last that his self-satisfied idealism did not include understanding the true nature of his humanity.

In a poor and backward community in Mexico, the Catholic Priest Nazario (Francisco Rabal) follows the Christian principles and lives a humble life without possessions in an old hostel owned by Chanfa (Ofelia Guilmáin) and used by prostitutes. When the prostitute Andara (Rita Macedo) kills he coworker Camilla that had stolen her buttons of shells, she is wounded and seeks shelter with the priest. Meanwhile, the disillusioned dweller of the hostel Beatriz (Marga López) is lured by her boyfriend Pinto (Noé Murayama) and tries to commit suicide. However, Chanfa convinces her to return to her village. When the police discover that Andara is hidden in the room of Nazario, she flees and Nazario undresses his cassock and wanders in the poor countryside, helping the destitute and begging for food. When Nazario reaches a very poor village, he meets Beatriz that is living with Andara and asks him to help a child that is very ill. Nazario prays for the child and on the next morning she is healed. Andara and Beatriz believe he is a saint and become his followers. Along their journey, Nazario and Andara are arrested and the priest is humiliated and beaten by common people and by the church.

"Nazarin" is an ironic criticism to the hypocrisy of church and society by Luis Buñuel. Francisco Rabal has an awesome performance in the role of a priest that lives in accordance with the principle of the catholic apostolic roman church and is betrayed, humiliated and hated by the people that he helps and by the church that he serves. One of my favorite sequences is when Nazario is protected by a criminal in jail and the man concludes that Nazario is a good man, he is a murderer and they are in the same place. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Nazarin"

Nazarin is some kind of saint,he wants to live in life exactly how Christ taught man to do.But it's too late:now the Catholic Church is in the hands of a wealthy bourgeoisie,the bishops live in luxury and don't give a damn about the poor and the sick.That's why our hero can't follow the way his hierarchy asks him to follow.So he divests himself of everything,and on his way to purity,he's joined by some kind of Mary Magdelene and a woman who's attracted by him sexually (the scene between this girl and her fiancé is telling).In Spain (it was the late fifties),they thought Nazarin was a Christian movie!Knowing Luis Bunuel,it was downright incongruous:all his work is anticlerical to a fault.Comparing Nazarin and his "holy women" to Jesus is a nonsense.On Nazarin's way,only brambles and couch grass grow.His attempt at helping working men on the road is a failure,he's chased out as a strike-breaker.All his words amount to nothing.At the end of the journey,he's arrested and offered a pineapple by a woman(Bunuelian sexual symbol). Thanks to "Nazarin" ,Bunuel was allowed to return to Spain (where the censors had not got a clue ) and to direct "Viridiana".

A non-denominational journeyman priest wanders across the sins , plagues and poverty of the lower classes and secular world . Along the way he experiencies a number of thunderous episodes that have relation with the Gospels .At the beginning he lives at an old hostel along with a few prostitutes who rob him some belongings . Later on , Nazarin undertakes a religious journey followed by the problematic and epileptic Beatriz : Marga Lopez , and, by Andara : Rita Macedo who formerly murdered a woman . Nazarin efforts to follow Christ's teachings, he then learns the thought-provoking lessons about he can get charity as well as give it .

Here Buñuel never ridicules religion, but he carries out a sour critical to limited religious aspects, and he observes how irrelevant most of his work is to the sinners Nazarin tangles with. This is a scathing indictment of Christianity , well written and directed by the great filmmaker Buñuel. Drama, religion, and documentary-alike account of whores, waifs, beggars, dwarf, street urchins and poor people in the blocks, streets and outdoors from Mexico country. "Nazarin" is a true Buñuel hero well represented by Francisco Rabal who gives a very good acting as Nazarin , a priest who gathers together a little group of disciples wandering throughout the Mexican desert as a cross between JesusChrist and Don Quixote. It results to be a perfect vehicle for Francisco Rabal as the defrocked reverend attempting to relive Christ's life. The Spanish actor Francisco Rabal is well accompanied by an enjoyable Mexican cast such as : Marga López, Rita Macedo, Ignacio López Tarso, Murayama and Rosanda Monteros who acted in The Magnificent Seven.

It contains an evocative and atmospheric cinematography in black and white, shot in Churubasco studios and exteriors filmed in Mexican landscapes by the expert cameraman Gabriel Figueroa , Indio Fernandez's regular photographer . The motion picture was competently directed by Luis Buñuel , at his grimmest and usual style. It was directed in his Mexican period, once he exiled from Spain to France and later on, Mexico . The first one he made in Mexico was "Gran Casino" with the singer idol Jorge Negrete, following "The great madcap or El gran calavera" with Fernando Soler. Then he was hired by producer Oscar Dancigers to make the successful "The forgotten ones or Los olvidados". Buñuel went on directing a in Mexico several films, some of them with same producer, such as : "The devil and the flesh, Mexican bus ride, The brute, Robinson Crusoe, A woman without love, Wuthering heighs, Archibald Cruz's criminal life , Evil Eden, The young one, Angel Exterminator, Simon of the desert" . Exiled Buñuel followed a French period including titles as "Diary of a chambermaid, Belle de Jour, The milky way, Discreet charm of Bourgeoise, The phantom of liberty". Of course, this great Spanish actor also shot films in Spain, such as : "Hurdes tierra sin pan", "Tristana", "Viridiana" and his last one "Obscure object of desire". Rating : 7/10. Better than average. Indispensable and essential watching for Luis Buñuel aficionados.

Spanish director Luis Buñuel career spanned almost 50 years, from 1929 to 1977. Arguably, his best films were those he made during his exile in Mexico - from the late forties to the early 60s. There he had to deal with very cheap budgets, and work in an industry interested mainly in churning commercial movies to unsophisticated audiences, yet he somehow managed to make interesting, thought provoking movies that have stand the test of time. This movie is based on a novel by Spanish author Benito Perez Galdos - and the adaptation is quite faithful, even if the setting is now early 20th century Mexico instead of early 20th century Spain. The protagonist, Nazarin, is a priest who tries to live a life that is as faithful as it can be to the one prescribed by Christ. The question many would ask is whether such endeavor would be possible, without incurring in the hostility, incomprehension and mockery of your fellow human beings. As it happens, he suffers a lot of indignities, yet he remains stubborn (until the controversial final shot) to this objective. I think Buñuel wanted to show Nazarin as a somewhat ridiculous figure, but perhaps inadvertently, his stubbornness (at least to this viewer) comes out as admirable. In any case, a great film.

A priest (Francisco Rabal) in a poor community lives a charitable life in accordance with his religious principles, but many others do not return the favor.

There are two things that really stood out for me with this title. One, if I am not mistaken, Bunuel had a rocky relationship with Catholicism. Yet, here the priest is the hero, and in no facetious or false way. He truly lives a good life, a devout life, and is helpful to his fellow man. He is an inspiration to us all.

Second, Francisco Rabal is amazing and really drives this film. He starred in three films directed by Buñuel - "Nazarín", of course, but then later "Viridiana" (1961) and "Belle de jour" (1967). Interestingly, William Friedkin thought of Rabal for the villain of "The French Connection" (1971). However, he could not remember the name of "that Spanish actor". Mistakenly, his staff hired another Spanish actor, Fernando Rey. Friedkin discovered that Rabal did not speak English or French, so he decided to keep Rey. Rabal had previously worked with Rey in "Viridiana". Rabal did, however, work with Friedkin in the much less successful but Academy Award-nominated cult classic "Sorcerer" (1977), a remake of "The Wages of Fear" (1953).

Luis Bunuel has always been a filmmaker whose work was obscure to me. My first experience with him was The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeosie, often considered his greatest work, with which I became so frustrated and bored that I eventually shut the tape off. Likewise Belle de Jour, which is almost certainly his best known film and also generally considered one of his many masterpieces, didn't interest me very much at all. I didn't hate it like I did Discreet, but I didn't like it. Third, I saw L'Age d'Or. Finally, I had gotten somewhere. Fourth, Los Olvidados, also good. Still, neither L'Age d'Or nor Los Olvidados blew me away. Great films, but not masterpieces.

Nazarin is my fifth Bunuel, and I like it just a tad more than those other two. It is about a priest from Spain now in Mexico who refuses to live in the kind of luxury most priests live in. He wants to be more like Jesus, leading the meekest life possible. He's also willing to forgive everyone for anything, and to suffer without protest. I'm pretty sure Bunuel does not sympathize with the character, and sees him as rather self-righteous. However, I only assume that because of my knowledge of the director, whose most famous quotation is "Thank God, I'm still an atheist," which he apparently said in an interview over this very film (I get this information from John Baxter's book about Bunuel, if you're interested). The interviewer who dragged those words from Bunuel's mouth must have been himself confused about Nazarin. One who was more predisposed to believe in religious conviction, who also knows nothing about Bunuel, might see the priest as a heroic figure. This is especially true if that viewer has his/her own criticisms of organized religion. The priest may be somewhat self-righteous, but he seems to be basically a good man. When he harbors a violent prostitute in his room in order to protect her (and, presumably, to save her soul), people begin to find out and assume that their relationship is sexual. His superiors assume the same and punish him for it. Later on, he suffers even worse punishments from clerics.

about faith as only manner to live. about the struggle to be Christian. all in the web of Bunuel's cruel and subtle irony. a remarkable film for the image of a way. for the crumbs from Don Quixote. for the science to explore social expectations and the self protection of many. grace full, courageous, cruel, cold, the same Bunuel who looking the decomposition of illusions. a man. and two woman. Mexican villages. the message. the sacrifice. and the shadow of doubt. it is more than a religious film. like each film of Bunuel, it represents perfect support for reflection. about life, people and faith's expressions. about ideal. and about its high price. nothing new, at the first sigh. but useful. for define yourself.

Luis Bunuel's "Nazarin" will always be remembered as a great film because it is absolutely honest in its presentation of comical assault on religion.It is one of those outstanding films which must be shown to all people especially young children in order to familiarize them with the notions of good and bad,sacred and evil.The toughest question asked by "Nazarin" is about the strengths and weaknesses of organized religion.It has been tackled by involving numerous ordinary people who are not at all above petty affairs in their mundane lives especially sins.Bunuel scores tremendously by showing us that various questions related to class differences deserve frank,honest and reliable answers. Nazarin appears credible as it has been made in a light,comical vein.This is the sole reason why it can be said that the story of an ordinary priest appears absolutely true to life to all audiences.It is amazing how Bunuel approaches quest for true love issue in his film. This black & white gem was shot marvelously by Gabriel Figueroa,one of Luis Bunuel's favorite cameraman.Film critic Lalit Rao saw "Nazarin" at Trivandrum,India during 13th International Film Festival of Kerala 2009."Nazarin" was introduced by eminent Indian cinema personality Mr.P.K.Nair as part of a special package called "50 years ago".This is a film which should be with any discerning DVD collector.

A priest attempts to live as close to the word of God but gets shafted for it by the peasants, the church and the authorities. Only a prostitute and a woman in search of love follow his steps. It has a powerful message but delivered in a tame way because of the politics of the time.

My Rating : 8/10

Luis Bunuel is no doubt one of the greatest filmmakers - 'Nazarin' is an underrated gem in his filmography and the masterful depiction of morality, Christian values is pure and of the highest order in the realm of art.

A work of honest art from one of the greatest to have worked in the medium. Absolute must-see.

Nazarin by the acclaimed surrealist Bunuel is ovbviously an attack on the Catholic Church and its loss of values. It is not a visual film and I think it would have played better on the stage. Bunuel takes us through this man, the nazarene that lives like Christ lived; a true follower i.e. in poverty, and without a care for property and what the next day bringeth. Some might call it a parallel to Christ's story but any follower and practitioner of the word, life should be like Christ in a way. But in essence Bunuel also inquires into the ogle of man's selfishness and need to sin and how goodness may save us all. It is a bold statement to make that may enliven, or recite to memory the movie for some. Truth, be told the Nazarene is also selfish because he gives without wanting in return or asking for it. His selfishness is his folly and the two women who follow him represent the sides of a coin;with the same face on each side. Lots of people represent sides of a coin in this movie, all with both faces the same. But the movie isn't exactly memorable once it ends and one could attack many of its ethical perforations and effusions within the movie's own doctrine. Not top-notch Bunuel but a "surreal" dream sequence that bunuel stages whithin where the message of the movie is framed and is worth noting for it shows you the capability of the director, Bunuel.

How you'll most likely take in a film like Nazarin is if you have context and/or a little prior experience with the filmmaker Luis Bunuel; conversely, it could be a completely absorbing and intellectually intriguing piece if it's you're first time with him. Bunuel was for his life and career an avowed non-believer (one of his truest and wittiest quotes: "thank God, I'm an Athiest"), and so one comes to a story like in Nazarin about the titular priest who, following a fire in his quite poor abode, decides to go around the countryside in a sort of pure journey without any definite end.

All Nazarin knows (Francisco Rabal in a towering performance, mostly for hoe he keeps his emotions at an even keel for 90% of it) is that he has to find some purpose in his position, though he is constantly witness to and victim of miscreants and evil-doers and just people who will kick him and them kick him again knowing he won't fight back. Oh, and a couple of women look to him as a SAINT, to which he tries to ward off but to no avail.

These two women are Beatriz (Marga Lopez) and Andara (Rita Marcado), who are coming to this priest in a couple of dire straits as the former has gone kind of insane after her lover has left her for the military and the latter, who initially tells off Nazarin (he badmouthed a cousin who knows) and then comes back after killing someone. How full in their belief in Nazarin are they? Well... it would seem like quite a lot, at least for Beatriz (watch her flutter her eyes before she goes into a state at one point).

But this idea of what belief means, what faith in actual practice and the exact cost of following a life of really being there for people, like the sickest ones who are very poor and can't get out of bed and may be near death, is at the heart of this film and what Bunuel I think is interrogating. I don't think necessarily he is unsure about his own faith, or lack thereof, but he grew up in a Catholic world and society in Spain and saw first-hand the good intentions but also the hypocrites and charlatans and how the "normal" people will very much go into Church one way and leave acting totally different. Religion is an institution, and the hierarchy is there to keep people in place just like anywhere else, and Nazarin, morally knowing how to be but understanding that people can get "insane" in going overboard (ill get to this momentsrily) but still going out into the world to practice what Jesus preaches by helping people and walking mostly barefoot.... he's seen as an "eccentric."

Nazarin is a great film of contradictions, namely that there's this satirical bite to it that Bunuel can't not have here on one hand; notice the midpoint, which is where I think this takes off from just a very good story (the first act is loaded with colorful histrionics and dabs into comedy before that big fire changes the course of things) into being much more, when Nazarin is called, reluctantly, to see to a very ill woman by Beatriz and some other women in a small village. When he goes in he does what little prayer he can and yet somehow his reputation, whatever the hell it is, has been reinterpreted as to a Healer with a capital H. This is darkly amusing but it also speaks to how people, usually lacking in certain education or any access to medicine or Healthcare, will go to whatever seems like the best chance to healing. And then when the girl Nazarin saw the next day has been healed, it seems whatever he did.... worked! What did he do? He doesn't know!

So, there's this thematic line running through the film about how much some of the characters look up to Nazarin, what his effect is, but this is not a full blown satire or I should say Bunuel doesn't take any easy road with depicting these people. Another filmmaker I could see creating a story where Nazarin gives in to the cynicism and becomes a cult leader or something. Instead what we get in this film is something closer to Neo-Realism, in acting and direction, and in casting for supporting players (oh that little guy is a stand out, a very charming devilish presence), and it gives the film this edge even as he and his crew film everything so simply and clearly (there's camera moves, for sure, and one near the end as one cart passes Nazarin that I found very moving), but he makes it about the emotions of the characters, and to this Lopez and Macedo are excellent here and make these two women intense and fierce and show strongly how these women may believe in God, but they definitely believe in this man on his Jesus-like course through the countryside.

What I mean is this film is so interesting to me because it does call out the double standards of Christianity, how people can turn on someone or people so quickly and judge so quickly (notice how many times other people assume Nazarin has these two women to basically sleep with), and how our titular hero is a man of faith but he's not without reason (he uses a word many evangelicals find dirty today, "Science") and really wants to be left alone even after he takes his would-be "disciples", and yet I don't think this could ever be called blasphemous or something controversial - unless of course one is so stuck to a dogma that anything outside of it is filth. Luis Bunuel's courage and skill as an artist is to give us a story like this and let us decide for ourselves what's what and doesn't judge anyone (well, save for men in uniforms with guns and the higher Clergy, he knows where they can shove it).

I'll be thinking on this one for some time, maybe more than some of his other movies; my immediate take is that Nazarin himself is what bumps this into the director's top tier, how he's written and portrayed as this relatively pure soul who wants to do Good and knows what goes into Goodness (he tells this to another at one point), but feeling it and doing it in a cruel and poor world such as this Mexican rural landscape is staggering. Lastly, it's not one of his more surrealistic pieces (albeit the one seizure/hallucination memory Beatriz has is like a sprinkle on this soufflé), but the ambiguity, even down to that final shot, is spellbinding.

Dostoevsky made his character Ivan Karamazov create a poem, the Grand Inquisitor, in which he orders the arrest of Christ, returned to earth, condemning him to death at the stake.

Bunuel takes up the theme again in this Nazarín. It is not Christ, but a Catholic priest, determined to follow Jesus' example, to the last consequences. It is not the inquisition that persecutes and condemns him, but rather the contemporary Church and society, led by rich property owners, who persist in using the name of Christ to manipulate the faith of the ignorant people, for their benefit.

This essential idea has been repeated over the centuries, under the most varied heresies and ideologies. The Christian message is one of peace, solidarity, love, detachment from material goods, sharing and helping those most in need. Instead, the Church and temporal power have transformed Christianity into a straitjacket, which protects their interests and perpetuates the shameless exploitation of the weakest. And does it in the name of God and Christ.

The film's final message, however, is one of hope: there are still charitable souls who do good selflessly.

This is how the Nazarene's faith in man is renewed.

I've had a fairly uneasy and bumpy alliance with Luis Buhnel - many rate his work so highly that it is beyond reproach. I think that it can be agreed that whilst often very good, even excellent, his films are not always likable, or easy to watch.

So, when this title, second-hand - that I'd not heard of - cropped up at my local Cash Converters, for 99p, I did snap it up, but watching it took some time - and one false start.

Infamously anti-catholic, Buhnel again stirs up another hornet's nest, following a Mexican path on a theme that seems familiar with some Italian neo-realist directors; the relationship between the so-visible and commonplace face of "sin" - prostitutes - and the Church. In this case, it's of a rural priest, who like, Claude Raydu in Robert Bresson's 'Diary Of a Country Priest', tries to hold a cynical and generally spiteful local parish together, amongst the poverty and disease - at least spiritually.

I know many who cite Bresson's 'Diary Of...' as one of their favourite and most profound films, ever. I admit that, not being of Faith myself, it doesn't resonate personally so highly. Though Nazarin is less about this particular priest's decline in personal health, it suffers the same fate with me. However, it's well made, well acted and I can see why it's a five star film for many.

I don't think Buhnel would have been happy if everyone loved all his films - he seems to have been far too antagonistic for that and so my four stars is down more for personal taste than the film itself. The DVD transfer is good and the sound especially clear and well-toned.

Nazarin (1958)

*** (out of 4)

Luis Bunuel's "religious" film about a good hearted priest (Francisco Rabal) who does anything he can to help sinners but this might cause his fall from grace. I don't normally mind Bunuel's overbearing religious stances but this film got on my nerves. Technically speaking it's well made and has a good performance by Rabal but it goes too over the top with its speeches about good and evil. The priest is just showed way too good and everyone else is just showed way too bad. The good vs. bad aspect just seems too false for me to take the film too serious.

This simple tale of Mexican poverty and struggle in small villages is both the height of neorealism and surrealism. A saintly priest is the Christ-like protagonist, who faces similar trials and tribulation that Christ faced. Also, similar to Christ, a whore (like. Mary Magdeline) follows him, as well as another confused woman. The story unfolds simply, with no pretentions, and it highlights both the rewards and the absurdity of religion and its followers. You must choose for yourself which is the reward and which is absurd. Outstanding performances.

My third Buñuel movie so far, far much easier to understand than the French productions "Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie" or "Belle de jour" where imagination and reality intercept each other in higher intervals… ah, my neurons keep dancing in whirpool while watching them, taxing anyway.

After seeing it, the very first question burst out from my mouth was: International Catholic Cinema Office Award? It's a satire laughing at the ineffectiveness and cowardice of the Church and its discrimination and hostility towards women's validity and value to the Church (or God's Kingdom)! Father Nazario doesn't exist in our days on Earth... Why? Because he is Jesus. Jesus is now in heaven. No worker of God, in flesh and blood would or to be more exactly is able to behave, believe, think, act and live like he does. HOLY Nazario is a huge contrast to the hypocrisy of the Church (represented by his superior) who only focus onto the status and the trouble-free life.

I like this movie, especially the very last scene. A village woman gives Father Nazario a fruit, encouraging him to go on. It's a confirmation from the mouth of simple and plain people to what he is doing regardless the hierarchy or the "canonized" or "orthodox" establishment, the Church... touching.