What do you think?
Rate this book
A Search for Belonging: The Mexican Cinema of Luis Buñuel
As one of the foremost Spanish directors of all time, Luis Bu�uel's filmography has been the subject of innumerable studies. Despite the fact that the twenty films he made in Mexico between 1947 and 1965 represent the most prolific stage of his career as a filmmaker, these have remained relatively neglected in writing on Bu�uel and his work. This book focuses on nine of the director's films made in Mexico in order to show that a concerted focus on space, an important aspect of the films' narratives that is often intimated by scholars, yet rarely developed, can unlock new philosophical meaning in this rich body of work.
Although in recent years Bu�uel's Mexican films have begun to enjoy a greater presence in criticism on the director, they are often segregated according to their perceived critical value, effectively creating two substrands of work: the independent movies and the studio potboilers. The interdisciplinary approach of this book unites the two, focusing on films such as Los olvidados, Nazar�n, and El �ngel exterminador alongside La Mort en ce jardin, The Young One, and Sim�n del desierto, among others. In doing so, it avoids the tropes most often associated with Bu�uel's cinema--surrealism, Catholicism, the derision of the bourgeoisie--and the approach most often invoked in analysis of these themes: psychoanalysis. Instead, this book takes inspiration from the fields of human geography, anthropology, and philosophy, applying these to film-focused readings of Bu�uel's Mexican cinema to argue that ultimately these films depict an overriding sense of placelessness, overtly or subliminally enacting a search for belonging that forces the viewer to question what it means to be in place.
Although in recent years Bu�uel's Mexican films have begun to enjoy a greater presence in criticism on the director, they are often segregated according to their perceived critical value, effectively creating two substrands of work: the independent movies and the studio potboilers. The interdisciplinary approach of this book unites the two, focusing on films such as Los olvidados, Nazar�n, and El �ngel exterminador alongside La Mort en ce jardin, The Young One, and Sim�n del desierto, among others. In doing so, it avoids the tropes most often associated with Bu�uel's cinema--surrealism, Catholicism, the derision of the bourgeoisie--and the approach most often invoked in analysis of these themes: psychoanalysis. Instead, this book takes inspiration from the fields of human geography, anthropology, and philosophy, applying these to film-focused readings of Bu�uel's Mexican cinema to argue that ultimately these films depict an overriding sense of placelessness, overtly or subliminally enacting a search for belonging that forces the viewer to question what it means to be in place.
224 pages, Paperback
Published November 28, 2017
1 person is currently reading
9 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 9, 2022
Sooo worth a read if a fan of Buñuel and if you enjoy interdisciplinary interpretation. Ripley draws on philosophy and anthro to expand the Buñueliana canon within the realm of physical rather than the existing symbolic. Highlighting the merit of Buñuel’s Mexican period by focusing on films that are not as academically popular, Ripley leads us through interpretations of characters struggling to make meaning in complicated worlds they are at odds with.
Displaying 1 of 1 review