Buñuel's Viridiana is poorly-made nonsense. Nun-to-be Viridiana (Pinal) is invited back to her uncle's mansion before she takes her vows before God. There, she discovers that her uncle (Rey) wants to marry her, and he enlists the aid of his maid (Lozano) to force her to stay with him. Things don't go as planned and the rest of the movie diverges from acceptable storytelling and just kind of bumbles around into chaos. The film is not really about the story at all, so I won't bother telling you any more of the plot. Suffice it to say, it's incomprehensible (in purpose) and more than a bit frustrating.
Nothing feels believable, including any supposed satire. The writing is poor. The filmmaking is poor. This is essentially a student film, complete with above-average actors made to perform stilted and staged dialogue by a pretentious director who thinks he knows better than everyone else. Buñuel's tunnel vision disdain for the church (and apparently kindness in general) borders on offensive. But more insulting than the content itself is Buñuel's use of overt imagery and obvious symbolism, because nobody could have figured out his genius strokes without having him graciously dumb it down for all us idiot audience members. If I wanted to watch a feel-bad movie where well-intentioned people are made to pay for their beneficence, I would have watched the equally terrible Au Hasard Balthazar and walked out halfway through. But who does? Avoid this movie unless you like being sledgehammered in the face with negative sentiment.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055601/
