Starring Silvia Pinal, Fernando Rey, Francisco Rabal, Margarita Lozano, Lola Gaos

(8-Exceptional Film)

Subversive. Provocative. Exciting.

A subversive drama about an aspiring nun, Viridiana (Pinal), on a final familial visit before she takes her vows. A tragedy occurs, and Viridiana responds in saintly fashion. She takes a group of vagrants into her home at the same as her proud and handsome cousin moves in. Subtly transgressive, striking in its imagery (the beautiful Pinal, the repulsive vagrants), provocative, funny, bleak. There’s much left to interpretation, but this is the first Buñuel film that I’ve seen that’s iconoclastic imagery mixes with what I find to be a compelling narrative.

-Walter Tyrone Howard-

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