La voie lactée(1969)

English title: The milky way

Director: Luis Bunuel

Country: France

Two pilgrims in a modern France set out for Santiago de Compostela in Spain, where the body of St.James is believed to be buried. Throughout their journey they travel back and forth in space and time as they experience historical scenes referenced in different theological texts, all connected by a common notion. That of christianity, of heresy, of the dogma involving catholicism, of the beliefs and of the contradictions. They come across a priest obsessed with transubstantiation(who changes in his mind about it in a minute), a child with unusual powers, Marquis de Sade trying to preach atheism to a young girl in his own sadistic ways, an archbishop encouraging mass orgy in the name of Christ, nuns crucifying another nun, an angel of death and obviously Jesus who refrains from shaving his beard to make Virgin Mary happy.

Made almost 40 years after the famously notorious Un chien Andalou and L'Age Dor, this film still has some elements of Bunuel's blatant rendezvous with the equally, if not more eccentric Salvador Dali and their ideas of surrealist cinema. But on the whole, this film is much mellow, much more subtle with a tangible coherent structure in the narrative quite in the lines of "The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie". The scenes, the dialogues(co- written by Jean-Claude Carriere) reek of Bunuel's infamous sarcasm and black humor. Unlike his earlier take on Christianity, "Simon of the desert", this film is much closer to his latter work "The phantom of the liberty", only much more straightforward. But the dilemmas of his atheist mind, grown up in a completely catholic surrounding, are nevertheless very much visible. He constantly puts forward miracles, beliefs and ventures to counter them in peculiar and very satirical ways. He seems to believe one of his character's words "my freedom is a phantom" and still mocks it to the very end. The film is a collection of some wonderful moments. The best being the one where a priest sitting outside a room explains to a couple inside how the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus. He says that its almost like a sun ray coming through a window. At this very moment we see that at one moment the priest is inside the room, the next he is again outside. This has got to be one of the finest piece of cinematic irony ever.

True, that this film has got a huge number of biblical and theological references. Still for the ignorants such as me, it works completely. Dark, very funny, this film is indeed Bunuel's road trip to blasphemy! :D