Viridiana (1961, Sp./Mex.)



D. Luis Bunuel

Bunuel's film has been generally considered a masterpiece and it won the Palme d’Or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival in the year of its release. The film was originally banned in the director's home country and condemned by the Catholic church for its perceived indictment of Catholic self-righteousness, blasphemy, and obscenity.

In the plot, devout Spanish convent novice Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) visited her widower uncle Don Jaime's (Fernando Rey) who was still mourning the death of his wife due to a heart attack on their wedding night - without consummation. To reluctantly satisfy his obsession with her similar looks, Virdiana was clothed in his wife's wedding gown -- and drugged. He then carried her into the bedroom, loosened her dress, fondled her and was tempted to rape her. The next day, he falsely confessed to her that he had taken her virginity to keep her from returning to the convent for her final vows -- but the ultimate result was his own guilty self-humiliation and a suicidal hanging.

Another of the film's most controversial scenes was a drunken parody and re-enactment of Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper' by a group of beggars, to the sounds of the "Hallelujah Chorus" in Handel's Messiah - one of the celebrants even raped the virtuous and idealistic Viridiana.