“I love film too much.”
A biography of a period in the life of Luis Buñuel as he and producer/friend Ramón Acín discuss life and make the film Land Without Bread (Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan,1933), is portrayed here in a graphic novel format that perfectly reflects the times, events, philosophy and, of course, the film. An illustrated depiction of the events surrounding the film-maker’s third film and his struggles with his belief in his visions and the reaction to his work. Art, surrealism, actuality and depiction are represented here.
Following his collaboration with Salvador Dalí making Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L’Age d’Or (1930) Buñuel returned to Spain. Buñuel: In the Labyrinth of the Turtles follows that move from France as Buñuel and Acín reconsider their positions economically, artistically and ethically, negotiating a project which takes them from Paris into the heartlands of their homeland. Buñuel is in a process of rejecting what he begins to consider bourgeois surrealist principles when these are argued over by Acín the anarchist. Discussing life and philosophy over drinks in Parisian bars they head off to film the populace of an impoverished village in Spain, Las Hurdes, where the humanity of their struggling existence balances with hallucinations of animals and angels in the land where life is balanced on a precipice – both metaphorically and literally. What is reality and how do their filmic aspirations reflect actuality. How can they depict reality when the context is far wider? The resulting film Land Without Bread became the epitome of the pseudo-documentary, notwithstanding the Nanook of the North (1922), issues of creating docu-drama falsehoods for narratives, in that the actualities and brutalities portrayed became, as in his declaration “reality itself can be as surreal as the wildest imaginings”, a combined element of genuine harsh realities with concocted ethnic declarations.
In Buñuel: In the Labyrinth of the Turtles Fermín Solís reflects this ethic in his depiction of events, referencing spiritual and religious connotations, visions and ideologies within events as they unfold in the mind of his protagonists or in actuality in the world around them. A renowned artist and illustrator and children’s book creator, Solís crisp artwork has produced a whole that is distinctly adult in subject, politics and instigation, the closing elements revealing the subsequent lives of the characters helps place the reality within the context of the art. So as Buñuel questions existence even as he questions the process of film-making itself, the comic adopts a similar aspect that adequately reflects its subject.
“If I could make that documentary.. with a film like that I could make a critique of the capitalist bourgeois system even greater than my earlier films. More directly.”
The depictions of the poverty strewn populace as shown in the filming are literally the spirits of the deceased, some casting skeletal shadows whilst the pair try to understand the gravity of the situation whilst recording their documentation of events. The questions of spirituality and civilisation abound in depictions of angels and relations to Dante and de Sade in the religious and social aspects of the film. So conversations with monks also reflect the situations of the bereaved. Surrealism in life real life contrasts with recollections of other artistic endeavours, such as an animated timepiece relating to earlier works and questioning his own perceptions of justification. Pierre Unik even comes disguised as an unshaven nun to ask additional questions. The film-makers’ passion for the environment raises questions about their raison d’etre: “just to earn a buck off the misery and suffering of others,” opposing the need to show the wider context of deprivation to an uncaring rich world. Looking for lizards, talking to spirits, questioning the world are all themes addressed in the tight art and dense philosophical discussions in this succinct and involving analysis of a short period in the life of the great director.
Fermín Solís has created a compelling work of art that is a pseudo-biography of Luis Buñuel who created a compelling work of art that is a pseudo-documentary. Always engaging, informative and questioning.