(1961) As ordered, ultra-pious, about-to-be-cloistered nun Sylvia Pinal goes for a last visit to the reclusive uncle she hardly knows, Buñuel regular and French Connection heavy Fernando Rey, solely as a mission of mercy — but there’s a perfectly fitting wedding dress and a crucifix/switchblade in store. Rey’s own neglected illegit son Francisco Rabal, despite a utilitarian view of women and offensive — even for the time — smoking habits, frees a little dog from cruelty only for another one to trot past in the same plight. And Pinal’s attempt to take a bevy of pitiful beggars under her wing ends with … And a penitential crown of thorns flames up next to an outdoor bonfire while a child’s jump rope is involved in death and attempted rape. Apparently altruism doesn’t pay — but that’s just the beginning of the provocations in Buñuel’s classic of anti-clericalism, his triumphant return to filmmaking in Franco’s Spain — where censors actually approved the script, but then “a reproduction of Da Vinci’s Last Supper” was its sole description of the most notorious scene. Mexican movie superstar Pinal provided the backing, via her wealthy furniture dealer husband, in order to make a picture with Buñuel — his inspiration was a painting of the very obscure Saint Viridiana kneeling on the floor before a crucifix and crown of thorns. Viridiana was screened on the final day of the 1961 Cannes Film Festival, creating an immediate sensation; it promptly shared the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or — to Franco’s acute embarrassment. All prints were burned and it was banned until the dictator’s death in 1977. Wondered Buñuel, “What is it that people take exception to? My heroine is more virginal at the end than she was in the beginning.” b&w; Approx. 90 minutes
1:00, 2:50, 4:40, 6:30, 8:20, 10:10
A JANUS FILMS RELEASE

“As ever with Buñuel, religion and lust are one (Bach and rock inflame desire equally, and a habit is as arousing as a bustier), and the devil is in the details: the bare feet of a girl jumping rope, a burning crown of thorns, and a pocketknife concealed in a cross join with the anarchic doings to convey his sardonic world view. Silvia Pinal is a prototype for Catherine Deneuve.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“REMAINS AS BEAUTIFUL AS IT IS FEROCIOUS. More than 45 years after its debut, Viridiana still resonates.”
– Elina Shatkin, LA Weekly

“What makes it fascinating is Buñuel’s melodramatically graphic camera, which continually goads us, and his rhythmic sense which, for example,
builds the orgy like a bolero. He is a master technician with the outlook of a collegiate idealist who has just discovered venality and lust…
a logical extension of the career of a man who began by slitting a girl’s eyeball with a razor.”
– Stanley Kauffman

“Arguably Buñuel's greatest provocation, a blitz on religious piety that still has the power to disrupt.” – Time Out New York

“Buñuel's masterpiece to end all masterpieces.” – Freddy Bauche

“Further cemented Buñuel’s status as Surrealist legend. Like the greatest of storytellers, Buñuel is a master of hiding things in plain sight.
Terrifying in the manner of Polanski’s horror trilogy—namely, it raises paranoid anxieties that home and family are infinitely
more dangerous than strangers and the outside world. That David Lynch would later recycle these delightfully spooky conventions
in Twin Peaks and a number of his films is evidence that it still hits a nerve today.”
– Reverse Shot