The purpose of this delightful exaggeration of the poverty and misery of the Spanish interior is quite clear at the end: it's a call to arms by Luis Buñuel against Franco. In other words, it's pure propaganda, blaming Franco for everything bad in the movie and arguing that if only he were beaten all social problems in the region of Hurdes - that had probably lasted for centuries before Franco - would miraculously disappear.
After Un Chien Andalou and The Golden Age, I can say that Las Hurdes is at least an improvement on Buñuel's work, and I finally see in it the seeds that would give birth to movies like That Obscure Object of Desire and Belle de Jour. Something about it seems very modern, a lot more modern than Buñuel's two previous movies It's a merciless, cruel look at a desolate, miserable region of Spain, and Buñuel's camera doesn't shy away from showing the most gruesome aspects of its daily existence: the hunger, the child mortality, the ignorance. It's an unbearable, hellish portrait, without a iota of Buñuel's dark humor to alleviate the sensation of despair it causes on the viewer. It shows squalor and social indifference in a naked way that modern cinema sometimes still avoids, and for that is work truly ahead of its time.
After Un Chien Andalou and The Golden Age, I can say that Las Hurdes is at least an improvement on Buñuel's work, and I finally see in it the seeds that would give birth to movies like That Obscure Object of Desire and Belle de Jour. Something about it seems very modern, a lot more modern than Buñuel's two previous movies It's a merciless, cruel look at a desolate, miserable region of Spain, and Buñuel's camera doesn't shy away from showing the most gruesome aspects of its daily existence: the hunger, the child mortality, the ignorance. It's an unbearable, hellish portrait, without a iota of Buñuel's dark humor to alleviate the sensation of despair it causes on the viewer. It shows squalor and social indifference in a naked way that modern cinema sometimes still avoids, and for that is work truly ahead of its time.