Viridiana

Dir. Luis Buñuel. 1961, 90 mins. 35mm. With Silvia Pinal, Fernando Rey, Francisco Rabal. This black and sardonic “comedy” recounts the undoing of a priggish “Good Samaritan” nun who attempts to live out (and instill in others) values of decency and purity. She is duly elevated to a state of ambiguous liberation—as a participant in a ménage à trois—after her brutal rape by a lecherous beggar. The film is suffused with subtle, forbidden images, often only hinted at to increase our participation in the act of desecration.

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