Él (This Strange Passion) Overview

Male paranoia reaches pathological heights in Luis Buñuel’s Él, one of the emblematic films of the director’s prolific—and still largely neglected—Mexican period. It begins, suitably, with fetishistic flair: churchgoer Francisco Galván (Arturo de Córdova), a wealthy middle-aged bachelor, ogles the feet of a young socialite named Gloria Vidalga (Delia Garcés) on Holy Thursday. A predatory pursuit follows; Francisco woos Gloria into marrying him and not her fiancé, then reveals himself to be a maniacally possessive and sadistic husband. Gloria’s tortured existence only intensifies when the circle of people around her—mother included—adopt Francisco’s warped point of view and accuse the dutiful wife of adulterous designs. Buñuel’s parable of patriarchal (and clerical) monstrousness, a rumoured favourite of Jacques Lacan, rests on a cunning narrative substitution: what starts as Francisco’s story ends as Gloria’s, allowing passage into the siloed wife’s interiority as she vacillates between outrage, gaslit self-delusion, and empathetic concern for her unravelling husband.

In Spanish with English subtitles.

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