dbdumonteil Review of Fever Mounts at El Pao

Fever Mounts at El Pao (1959)

Political games in El pao.

[6 October 2001]

For a director like Luis Bunuel,this is a holding pattern movie.Bunuel is neither Costa Gavras nor Alan J Pakula and his political plot falls short of its goal.What's definitely lacking here is madness,the surrealism,almost present at least in one sequence,dear to the great Spanish artist.His art becomes ineffective when it deals with pure drama.The irony seems tamed,subdued.Maria Felix's part is sometimes some kind of Maupassant's "Boule de suif" (a character from the nineteenth century),sometimes some kind of thirties Marlene Dietrich (Sternberg's "dishonored").In a nutshell,originality is not this character's forte.Gerard Philipe (sadly,soon to die from cancer)is miscast and ill-at -ease ,in his part of "intellectual trying to sweeten the dictature".Nevertheless,he ended his career with something more commendable than the disastrous Vadim's "les liaisons dangereuses".

Coming after "Nazarin" "la mort en ce jardin" or "cela s'appelle l'aurore",and preceding such masterworks as "Viridiana" "Belle de Jour" or "Tristana", this fever is not so hot.