Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan
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| Las Hurdes | |
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| Directed by | Luis Buñuel |
| Produced by | Ramón Acín Luis Buñuel |
| Written by | Luis Buñuel Rafael Sánchez Ventura Pierre Unik |
| Starring | Abel Jacquin Alexandre O'Neill |
| Music by | Darius Milhaud |
| Cinematography | Eli Lotar |
| Editing by | Luis Buñuel |
| Release date(s) | December 1933 |
| Running time | 30 mins |
| Country |  Spain |
| Language | French |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan (1932), (English language: Land Without Bread or Unpromised Land) is a 28-minute-long documentary film directed by Luis Buñuel and co-produced by Bunuel and Ramon Acin. The narration was written by Bunuel, Rafael Sanchez Ventura, and Pierre Unik, with cinematography by Eli Lotar.
Although it is often described as a documentary, Land Without Bread is actually an early (some might say prescient) parody -- some would say a Surrealist parody -- of the barely invented genre of documentary filmmaking. The film focuses on the Las Hurdes region of Spain, the mountainous area around the town La Alberca, and the intense poverty of its occupants. Buñuel, who made the film after reading an ethnographic study (Las Jurdes: étude de géographie humaine (1927)) by Maurice Legendre, took a Surrealist approach to the notion of the anthropological expedition. The result was a travelogue in which a disinterested narrator provides unverifiable, gratuitous, and wildly exaggerated descriptions of the human misery of Las Hurdes.[1]
Anti-clericalism of the director is obvious in certain sequences. The film shows the extreme contrast between the residents of the villages and the much more affluent appearance of the church located in one cited as "one of the poorest". It also shows a Carmelite convent occupied by one White Friar, adding in the narrative "The sole companions of the friar are toads, adders, and lizards". The film was banned in Spain from 1933 to 1936.
The film was originally silent, though Buñuel himself narrated when it was first shown. A French narration by actor Abel Jacquin was added in Paris in 1935. Buñuel used extracts of Johannes Brahms's Symphony No. 4 for the music.
[edit] References
- ^ Ruoff, Jeffrey. An Ethnographic Surrealist Film: Luis Buñuel's Land Without Bread. Visual Anthropology Review 14, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1998), 45-57
[edit] External links
Cet obscur objet du désir • Le fantôme de la liberté • Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie • Tristana • La Voie Lactée • Belle de jour • Simón del desierto • Le journal d'une femme de chambre • El ángel exterminador • Viridiana • The Young One • La fièvre monte à El Pao • Nazarín • La mort en ce jardin • Cela s'appelle l'aurore • El río y la muerte • Ensayo de un crimen • Robinson Crusoe • Abismos de pasión • La ilusión viaja en tranvía • El • El bruto • Una mujer sin amor • Subida al cielo • La hija del engaño • Susana • Los olvidados • El Gran Calavera • Gran Casino • Las Hurdes • L'Âge d'Or • Un chien andalou
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