Nazarín (1959)

 Nazarín (1959)

During the Porfiriato, (based on a picture of Don Porfirio Diaz on the wall; one would assume that it would not be there after the Mexican Revolution,) misfortune follows a saintly man as he attempts to divorce himself from terrestrial reality and live solely on a spiritual level.

Taking in an injured prostitute results in him being defrocked and living a wandering, mendicant life, all of which he accepts as the will of God and that of his superiors.

As a result of his wandering, the story turns into something like a road movie as he travels about and has short adventures with the people he meets.

When he accepts a job with only food for payment, he intrudes on labor negotiations and is asked to leave, but his momentary presence is already enough to result in murder.

Chance meeting again with some of his flock he is asked to perform a miracle for a sick girl. He rejects the request saying the girl's health is dependent on medical intervention and the will of God, but he reluctantly agrees to pray with the group.

The prayer session turns into something remarkably like a scene out of The Exorcist, not only with him offering his life and health for the girls' but with the rampant superstition of ignorant women on display despite all his efforts to contain it. Later on, Nazarin will even state in no unclear terms that demons are nothing but superstition.
I wonder what Bunuel might have done with William Peter Blatty's novel. Maybe a comedy like Simon del Desierto? His Nazarin is a bit of a contradiction, on the one hand, he trusts science and psychology over superstition, but on the other, he is quite a bit clueless about how the material world works.

Parallels with Monty Python's The Life of Brian are difficult to ignore when it happens that the girl heals, and the apparent miracle is attributed to the wandering holy man or when unwanted disciples begin to follow him.
Bunuel's film talks about some people's desperate need for saviors. The film makes similar points as the Pythons', but is it that people want leaders, even if chosen for entirely the wrong reasons; or that only those who do not desire to lead are worthy to be leaders?
Maybe a little bit of both, plus more.
Has this film ever been acknowledged as an influence on the Pythons?

They stop to help with an injured horse. and when he reprimands a colonel for his inhumane treatment of a passerby, he is accused of heresy... by a fellow priest, even.

When they reach a plagued town, they stay and help, and the film most approximates themes from La Hurdes, Tierra Sin Pan, with efforts from their short stay achieving very little. Nazario's help is rejected by one dying woman, who would rather be comforted by her husband than by a priest. They kick him out of their home.

The film has the expected, odd Bunuelian touches: A catfight that allows a peep of prostitutes' undergarments, (later there'll be a closeup shot of a female corpse's foot); the recovering prostitute drinking the blood-soiled water used to clean her knife wound; the fantastic transformation of a portrait of Christ into a horrifying grimace, (The Exorcist III presented horrifying, subliminal statuary which some compared to then-contemporary visuals of Batman's The Joker, but I think this might have been the unacknowledged source, conscious or not.) Rapid blinking precedes a memory presented visually and is followed by a seizure.

A sequence where Nazarin is shown manufacturing cigarettes for money might seem odd to non-Catholics, but it's not at all surprising to someone familiar with Saint Marcelino Champagnat who manufactured nails to make ends meet, (coffin nails and literal nails... get it? Not that Bunuel was going for this specific pun.)
Add to that, a dwarf strung up like a pinata; plus animal imagery: donkeys. horses, cows, a snail, etc.

The dwarf offers to mark the homes of generous people for them; proposes one of the ladies; warns them they are wanted by the federales for unidentified crimes, (from what I can tell, it's simply perceived immoral behavior); and gives her news of her former lover, (Noé Murayama, whose appearance and rough presentation make him look like a character straight out of a Kurosawa film) who's in town buying horses. He accuses her of being the priest's lover and tells her she must leave him. She doesn't want to but accepts, almost.

By now Nazarin has begun to grow a beard, with which (along with his carefully explained criollo origin,) he has begun to physically resemble traditional (Mexican) imagery of a light-skinned Christ.

When the federales, accompanied by a small mob of townsfolk, catch up with them we get a low-rent reenactment of Christ's arrest and of Peter's defense. Traveling with a group of prisoners the trio is made fun of, presumably like Jesus on the cross. When put in a cell and abused by his fellows, even a 'good thief' comes out from the group to stand up for him. He finds it difficult to forgive them, but he still does.

The Church finally intercedes, and he is separated from the group of common criminals but is reprimanded for behaving crazily and imprudently.

Separated from Nazarin, and with the traveling chain gang, the ex-prostitute blesses the good thief and curses the bad one who beat Nazarin up.

Nazarin, walking with a single guard on the road, is passed by a carriage with the second woman and her lover. She had been accused of having carnal thoughts of Nazarin and reacted violently, but ultimately, (just as the dying woman did,) chose her lover over her spiritual guide.

A woman they meet sells the guard a couple of apples gives Nazarin a pineapple and wishes God to accompany him, breaking through his recent crisis of faith. As they walk on, Bunuel's drums are heard on the soundtrack.

Reading about this film I simply got the impression this was a thinly disguised retelling of the story of Christ, and because of that it did not seem like a priority to watch. It's a bit more than that. The subtlety on display requires a little bit of thought.

With Francisco Rabal, Marga López, Rita Macedo, and Jesús Fernández.