If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out

Charlie Bartlett is really, really good. I was expecting a kind of precious faux-Rushmore, but instead I got something more like Ferris Bueller. I'm sure if I was in a more critical mood I'd find a bunch of faults with it, but a lot like Lars and the Real Girl it generated such a good feeling that I didn't really want to find things that didn't work in it. It's a little Hollywood, but it makes you feel good. Go see it, and hurry because it won't be in theaters long. Seriously, I'll go with you.

#8 - Viridiana

A man holds a small, ornate cross in his hand, then slowly pulls it open, revealing the pocketknife it contains. A little girl plays with a crown of thorns, but it pricks her so she throws it in a fire. Anyone who loves seeing religious imagery being subverted can find a lot to like in Viridiana. But if it was only a collection of irreverent anti-religious images it wouldn't stand a chance of making this list. Bunuel made that film earlier in his career with L'age D'or. But L'age D'or is a film that's rotten on the surface, a slideshow of funny images that subvert religious icons. Viridiana is rotten to the core, subverting not only through the images, but through the story as well.

Viridiana is the story of a woman who is just about to take her vows to become a nun. Before she joins the convent for good she is ordered to pay one last visit to her patron, her uncle. During the visit her faith is shaken and she decides to stay at the farmhouse, choosing to take care of poor and crippled beggars from the nearby village. This being a Bunuel film, her plan backfires horribly. Her idealism is destroyed, and the film ends by suggesting that she hooks up with her worldly cousin. But a plot synopsis can't convey how deranged the journey is. The uncle dresses Viridiana up in his dead wife's wedding dress, and drugs her after she refuses to marry him. The beggars she tries desperately to help take terrible advantage of her and bicker with each other constantly. The beggars enter the farmhouse when she's away and destroy it, leading to the climax where Viridiana is attacked by the very people she tried to help. Finally she is not saved by heroism, faith or strength, but by the greed of one of the attackers who turns on the other. How could anyone maintain their faith after that ordeal?

And that's the terrible, wonderful question that the film ultimately asks. How can idealism exist at all in this world? It's conveyed best in my favorite scene. Viridiana's cousin notices a dog tied to a cart. He asks the man why the dog can't ride in the cart, and the man tells him the cart is for people to ride in. So the cousin buys the dog from the man. Sweet, right? But this is Bunuel so as the cart rolls away it passes another cart travelling in a different direction. And tied to that cart is another dog. It's this mastery of summing up an idea in an image that makes me love this film, and love Bunuel.

See also: Deranged foreign masterpieces- L'age d'or, Exterminating Angel, Week/End