Monday, March 22, 2010

Ascent to Heaven (1952)--Bunuel Review #1






4.5/5

Ascent to Heaven (American release title: Mexican Bus Ride), from early in Bunuel's Mexican period, is one of his gentlest pictures, in contrast to the Hell-On-Earth Neo-Realist-style masterpiece from two years earlier, Los Olvidados. It deals with the adventures of a young man, Oliverio, who must come to his mother's death bed on his wedding night to see that her will is drawn up. Oliverio (Estaban Marquez) has to travel to see a lawyer, who is several days away by bus, so he leaves his untouched bride to care for his mother, and many adventures ensue, as the bus is full of very colorful (but hardly Capra-kitschy) travelers.

Several things that happen worth noting: the bus gets stuck in a fog on the one lane dirt road leading up a mountain and comes head to head with another vehicle which can't reverse while a passenger on the bus gives birth; the bus has to cross a river and gets stuck--the up-and-coming politician insists at the point of a gun that a tractor (the symbol of progress) pull them out, but the tractor gets stuck and a little girl leading oxen saves the day; the bus driver takes all his passengers on for an extended stay with his mother, who they sing happy birthday to as he gets drunk. All the while, the hot Rita-Hayworth-looking Raquel (played by Lilia Prado, who had a long career in the Mexican film industry, including another appearance in Bunuel's adaptation of Wuthering Heights) is trying to tempt the recently married Oliverio into screwing her, which he does, without much consequence, in the bus on top of the mountain pass from which the film takes its name, Ascent to Heaven. It's a typical bit of Bunuel perversity too that Oliverio must ink his already deceased mother's finger so she can make her mark to have her will carried out.



There are several dream sequences and Bunuel, in top form, makes them blend unpretentiously into the narrative with some nice defocused transition shots. The particularly famous sequence here is Oliverio's fantasy, early in the film, of making whoopee with Raquel in the back of the bus, which has turned into a jungle, while his mother watches, peeling an apple on top of a pedestal which suggests both his high esteem for her, Eve's temptation, and Bunuel's later hilarious hour-long short about a religious ascetic who lives for years on top of a similar pedestal, 1965's Simon of the Desert.


As for finding this film, I had to download it from rapidshare, via a megadownload search, and then use some subtitles that I found via allsubs.org, which were excellent. This film, I believe, is available in a Spanish language edition on DVD, most likely without English subtitles, and I intend to burn a copy of it for myself.

As an afterthought, I assume this was one of Bunuel's lowest budget films (he even used a model for the bus at one point, pictured above, presumably to save money), but interestingly enough, even though it was done during his ostensibly "commercial" phase, it showcases some very characteristic Bunuelian obsessions and is quite an enjoyable film. Then again, as Bunuel says in his autobiography, My Last Sigh, he never filmed a shot that was against his personal principles and preferences.

1 comment:

  1. Bunuel was a genius; even a so-called minor film like this one is a gem rich with ideas and brilliant wit from start to finish.

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