Customer Reviews

Nazarin [VHS]

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i love some of the obscure films of Bunuel's mexican period. This one's hilariously sardonic, as a sincere, long-suffering ("nazarene") do-gooder priest in a small village is accused of crimes, de-frocked, and forced to roam the countryside with a failed suicide, a whore, and a lascivious dwarf. I won't say more....Buy the film! If you loved Viridiana or Simon of the Desert, you'll love this one too!

Octavio Paz, Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990, said about "Nazarin": "Nazarin follows the great tradition of mad Spaniards originated by Cervantes. His madness consists in taking seriously great ideas and trying to live accordingly". A humble and spiritual priest (Francisco Rabal in a wonderful performance) attempts to live by the principles of Christianity but is cast out of his church for helping a local prostitute by giving her a shelter after she had committed a murder. Nazarin wanders the country roads of the turn of the 20th-century Mexico, offering help to poor and begging for food. His two followers, a murderous prostitute Andara and her sister Beatriz who is a failed suicide desperately searching for love, consider him saint but it does not prevent him from hatred and humiliation from both the church and the people he meets on the road. He ends up beaten in prison and begins to question his faith for not be able to forgive his attacker.

Bunuel tells the story in a manner of a Christian parable masterfully and uniquely combining admiration and irony for the main character and strong criticism of formal religion and hypocrisy. The film is simple and profound as well as beautiful, ironic, and heartbreaking.

I consider Bunuel one of the best filmmakers ever. I've only seen fourteen of his films and they all belong to the different periods of his life but they have in common his magic touch, the masterful combination of gritty realism and surrealism, his curiosity, his inquisitive mind, his sense of humor, and his dark and shining fantasies. With great pleasure I am adding little seen and almost unknown but amazingly candid and touching surrealistic tragic-comedy "Nazarin" to the list of my favorite films.

The astonishing mind of Luis Buñuel created this implacable and merciless story about a priest who is condemned for people's ineffable rumors when he decides to host a prostitute in his home.

And this decision will become his biggest mistake due the people's double moral will spread till the highest power's spheres.

The priest's attitude will be Buñuel's hidden Ace.

One of my top favorites films of this irreverent and overwhelming Spanish filmmaker.
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The half of the sin is the scandal!

In the past 100 years, there have been several attempts to film the life of Jesus. I believe that none have been as successful as this masterwork by Luis Bunel. Understanding that traditional movie biographies set in Roman Jerusalem have been saccharine or melodramatic Bunel updates the story to 19th century Mexico. (For some reason, the cinematic Jesus story works better when the time and costumes are changed...see, for example, the Tom Hanks Movie "The Green Mile" which portrays a black Christ-like figure)

What I liked about this move is the convincing way in which the Christ story is retold. Jesus, (or as he is now called) Father Nazario, cares for those who are sick and prays for them. Should the person remain ill, nothing is said; but if the person recovers, Father Nazario is celebrated for bringing about a healing miracle. Like the original Jesus, Nazario is cruelly executed by the authorities who misunderstand his actions.

The best scene is the one in which Father Nazario does farm work along with other Mexicans but unlike them, seeks merely to be paid enough for his daily sustenance. This angers his co-laborers who feel threatened by a man who does not ask as much as he can get from the bosses. Only the outcasts seem to understand Father Nazario's gentle message of giving and tolerance.

There is noble grace in Father Nazario's love for the common man and the downtrodden. This Nazarite is not potrayed as the Son of Man who can turn water into wine or walk upon water. Instead, his miracles are those that anyone dedicated to practical compassion can do. If someone wants to get a handle on what the historical Jesus may have been like, Bunel's characterization of Father Nazario is a good examplar.

The sad news spreads that you have left this planet, Ofelia Guilmain, at age 81. Born in Spain, you became a naturalized Mexican in the 1940s and embarked on a stellar career on the stages of Mexico City and provinces and in a series of Mexican films, among them several by the Spanish emigre Luis Bunuel. We recall you best of all in NAZARIN, as the sometimes cynical, sometimes credulous landlady of the inn where Nazarin stays. As Chanfa, Ofelia Guilmain's acting in what might have been a rote part shows you once and for all that there are no small parts, just small actors. The wronged girl who finds herself pregnant tries to hang herself from a beam in the ceiling. In a typical Bunuel set-up, the beam snaps and the girl lives. Sobbing, on the floor, she looks up startled as she is discovered by Ofelia Guilmain who smirks and comments on "if you wanted to kill yourself, you should have found a better beam," a wry comment on the virility of the girl's cowardly suitor. Chanfa provides the note of the "real world" in contradistinction to the saintly impulses of the tortured priest, Father Nazario. Bunuel revered Ofelia Guilmain and used her again to good stead in his 1962 epic THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, and she appeared in several classic Mexican horror films including most memorably THE BRAINIAC, where, as the wife of a foundry owner she becomes the victim of the Terror Baron's revenge (warning, this is a pretty gruesome film). In person she was lovable, courageous, modest about her amazing career. She kept on working right until the end. Lovers of Bunuel will miss her, but we know that in NAZARIN you light up the skies of realismo with your passion, Senora Guilmain. Viva Ofelia Guilmain!