schooling on the Hurdanos, the few thousand people who live in this harsh region. The film has been described as a chronicle of misery, and this is quite true, although it con­ tains trademark Buñuelian iro­ nies (“The only luxurious things we came across in Las Hurdes were the churches”). In another sequence, as the narrator avers that the rocky, barren region of the Hurdes is best-suited for mountain goats, the narrator is quick to point out that, in the event of a goat’s precipitous fall to death from one of the rocky slopes, the goat’s flesh is greed­ ily consumed by the often-starv- ing peasants. Shot without sound, Buñuel did not add nar­ ration to the film until two years later. In its ironic detachment and clinical recording of the daily life of the Hurdanos (in­ cluding one powerful sequence consisting of the death of an infant), Las Hurdes is reminis­ cent of the documentary films of Robert Flaherty. Indeed, in his 1982 autobiography MY LAST SIGH, Buñuel says that he greatly admired Flaherty’s documentary WHITE SHAD­ OWS IN THE SOUTH SEAS (1928, completed by W.S. Van Dyke II). By Buñuel’s own account,


he edited Las Hurdes without a Movieola, at a kitchen table in Madrid using a magnifying glass. After finishing the film, however, the Spanish Civil War and World War II intervened, and Buñuel would not direct again until 1947, in his adopted land of Mexico. It is easy to for­ get his early years of struggle; his famous films of the 1960s and ’70s were directed when he himself was in his 60s and 70s. The source print for LAND WITHOUT BREAD is fair to poor, showing considerable damage and, unfortunately, is


10


an English language version of the film, not the original Span­ ish one, bearing the on-screen title, UNCOMPROMISED LAND. The mono soundtrack of


both films exhibits noticeable background hiss, but is tolerable. These films beg for a full resto­ ration from the best elements available, their soundtracks digi­ tally remastered, and to be pre­ served in digital format. Kino’s edition is thus a stop-gap until better elements can be located. —Rebecca & Sam CJmland


LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE


“The Women of the Bois de Boulogne” 1945, Home Vision Cinema #DAM 040, D/ST, $24.94, 85m 22s, VHS


Directed (early in his career) by


Robert Bresson from a script by Jean Cocteau, LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE (the Bois de Boulogne is a park in Paris) is based on an 18th-century story by Denis Diderot, although its setting


Elina Labourdette in Robert Bresson’s LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE, scripted by master fantasist Jean Cocteau.

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