MovieChat Forums > Simón del desierto (1970) Discussion > Maybe it was the insomnia, but this was ...

Maybe it was the insomnia, but this was one strange movie.

posted 17 years ago by zegras_welfsin
8 replies | jump to latest

I saw this movie by chance during a sleepness sunrise. I couldn't stop watching, because it just seemed so bizarre to me. I kept feeling like I was waiting for the movie to really get going, but I didn't really know what it would be about. Then it seemed to become an entire different movie, and then lead to an abrupt end. Of course, after the movie ended, I realized this was quite the interesting little movie. It's too bad I didn't record it or something.

Everybody keeps looking at the religious perspective on this movie, and perhaps that's what the director had in mind. But I have a slightly different interpretation. I'm not sure that Simon really is a prophet in the desert, and that the woman he's with is really Satan. Maybe this is just a result of my experience with literature including books, movies, and video games, that I've been conditioned not to take things on their immediate surface.

I think that the reality of the story is Simon and the woman in the dance club. My idea is basically that Simon merely perceives himself as an ascetic in the desert, and that the woman is seen as the devil because she opposes what she stands for, and somehow dragged him off to this club. Simon sits there sullenly, and I wonder if maybe the desert is a kind of allegory for how Simon feels, as though he doesn't fit in, and is unable to see the worth of his surroundings.

I sympathize with the character in that perspective, and maybe that's not at all what the director or screenwriter or whoever had in mind, and it's most likely too heavy of an interpretation when most of the weight of the film is in the beginning. But viewing the movie's gestalt (as a whole, I mean), the conclusion, to me, however brief, bears just as much weight as the rest of the film, mainly in part because of the drastic change in the movie's entire tone. Perhaps this is just because the last image is always the lasting image. But I think that the ending, which seemed sudden to me, used this suddenness to imply what the movie was really about.

I just think it's interesting to try and interpret the motive behind the rather sharp change towards the end of the film, and wonder if the movie is about something more than an age-old duality between good and evil.

[–] JakeDamian 17 years ago

Well, to clear up about the abrupt ending. Bunuel had a full-length idea for the film. Unfortunately, he had a very small budget and the little that he had was cut short. So he just used what he had and released it like that.

It's because of that that this movie doesn't really make the cut of my top Bunuel films. It had such promise, but it's a shame it couldn't have been finished. Because of this, it's really hard to interpret the movie or know what he had in mind for the rest of the film. I just like to take it as it is and enjoy the abrupt ending as a nice little bizarre and surrealistic ending to a crazy film.

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] guely55 17 years ago

Interesting... You mean like that Julio Cortazar short story about the motorcycle driver and the azteca being chased?

[–] vanityfair_713 12 years ago

I thought the same!

Personally, I think I have too much bloom. Maybe that's the trouble with me.

[–] Xcalat3 12 years ago

It IS a very strange but good movie, too bad it was unfinished.

When there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...

[–] Ben_Cheshire 10 years ago

It wasn't the insomnia.

[–] oknar1977 10 years ago

Yep, this movie kept interest me more and more. First I watched short clips on You tube. I couldn't stop read about the film details. The scenes with Sylvia whipping a cord with stone was scary to me, her movements were sudden and I think it was put on fast forward, it made me a little bit nauseous and frightening. He could easily direct horror movies.

The idea that a man sits on a pillar is hillarious - even though it did happen for real, I can't believe I never heard about it. I mean, even in Disney comic books there was a reference about a phylosopher who lived in a box, for example. But when I think more, now I get reference from cartoon music video Paranoid Android by Radiohead.

As I understand Buñuel's trade marks are feet fetish, ants and hand, fascination with fecal matter - it was all thrown in 40 minutes and it was done covertly or with taste. Movie starts like any other, weird and strange stuff was presented in slow easy manner, so a viewer not accustomed to surreal films can digest it. It's unbelievable that the same man who has literally started movies from film history itself, made such modern and intelligent movies in close minded and conservative times. Buñuel is like a time traveller who got chance to direct classic movies with all knowledge from the future.

[–] JoeKulik 10 years ago

"Film will only become an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper."-J Cocteau

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I think that your interpretation of this film is just brilliant. Going along with the Absurdist theme of the film, you dare to go so far as to question where "reality" actually lies in this film, the long drawn out portrayal of Simon the ascetic saint, or the 1960's rock night club scene at the very end. The way that you see this film shows that somewhere inside of you lies a true Absurdist spirit.

Perhaps fleshing out your interpretation a bit, however, I might suggest that the Simon in the rock night club has always been an uptight kind of guy who, maybe because of his (religious?) upbringing just doesn't know how to enjoy life, a guy who doesn't go out & have fun very often. So the blond haired gal in the night club might be an acquaintance who decides "enough is enough" & just decides to drag Simon out for a night on the town. From this perspective, Simon's sullen demeanor in the night club may not simply be a reaction to being in a loud disco, but might be a reaction to the whole idea of loosening up & just enjoying life altogether. In this context, Simon sees his blond female companion as the "devil" because she is forcing him to act counter to his strict, uptight (puritanical?) upbringing that has taught him that "enjoying life" is wrong & may even be a "sin".

From this perspective, the ascetic, saintly Simon in the desert would be an allegory of sorts, or maybe an unconscious template in 1960's Simon's conscience, portraying the extreme expectations that his parents & possibly his church drilled into him as he was growing up & that societal norms enforce in his adulthood. From the plausible interpretation of this film that you suggest, Bunuel may be suggesting that Simon in the rock night club may be EVERYMAN, that the 1960's Simon at the end of the film is just a token representative of the masses of people who unconsciously deprive themselves of a full enjoyment of life based on society's moral & religious expectations.

That the majority of the film seemingly dealt with the historical saintly Simeon Stylites would symbolize that the majority of 1960's Simon's life has been preoccupied with maintaining the "saintly" expectations of his parents as a child & the "saintly" expectations of society for the adult Simon.

In any case, I appreciate your FAR OUT interpretation of this film because it doesn't see the film as being flawed by a cut off of funding, as is the case with so many other viewers. You, as well as I, don't see this film as being prematurely cut short, but as having a true "gestalt", a harmonic wholeness as it is.