Nazarín
I have got here three posts about adaptations of Pérez Galdós for cinema. The first one is Luis Buñuel's extraordinary film Nazarín (1959). I saw the film a year ago, wrote this post, lost the draft, then read the book and found the post. My first impressions here as they were, unadorned.
There is a young idealistic Catholic priest don Nazario, who lives in a poorest room in a Mexican town. Prostitutes, thieves, and beggars are his everyday company, but he takes his vows in earnest and is ready to live through any humiliation for God - as he politely explains to two curious gentlemen at the very beginning of the story. The gentlemen will come and go, marvelling at the oddity, but the priest will have to learn by first hand what humiliation and suffering is. All begins when a drunken prostitute kills another and asks for don Nazario's help. Thus begins the story of what may be called his downfall, his almost Don Quixote-like wanderings across the land, a series of sad, incongruous adventures. The woman whom he saved joins him in his forced pilgrimage, as well as another girl, the beautiful, wronged and demented Beatriz, who worships him as a saint - and possibly loves him without knowing that.
The black-and-white realism of the film is stark and crude, with most of the limelight on the poor, the lowliest of people. The animal qualities, the rude compassion, the simplicity of thought and manner - every detail is there, nothing is forgotten. At the same time, it is impossible to limit it only to social satire and forget about religion... about life.
What is the characters' attitude to God and religion? Crazy pêle-mêle of superstitions. Stunningly strong fanaticism (one of the most horrifying scenes is when village women implore the priest to work a miracle for a sick girl). Nazario takes the Christian laws literally, but, paradoxically, the Church itself is opposed to that honest and direct pilgrim. A mystery for the well-fed, civilised clerics, he even becomes (in their eyes) a rebel and a heretic! More than that: his faith is simple, but real life is not. The truth of his beliefs may cause doubt. He can speak of God and paradise, but it means nothing to a dying woman who wants only her man. In prison, Nazario tries to endure patiently the cruel bullying, but gives in for a moment - and it is important that another convict's question about the meaning of his life shocks him profoundly: 'You are good, I am bad, still both of us are good for nothing'. ('Usted pa’el lado bueno, yo pa’el lado malo, ninguno de los dos servimos para nada'.) Moreover, sincere as the priest is, he is also blind to certain things, and learning to see proves painful.
There is certainly more to that incredible film than I can reasonably express in this poor post. It is necessary to say that the name of the actor who plays Nazarín is Francisco Rabal; note the well-organised plot, sequences of scenes carrying their meaning - that is, the scrupulous work of Buñuel; the total absence of music (which passed completely unnoticed by me, as the film holds your attention amazingly well even without music).
It is a greatly thought-provoking, disturbing, simple and complex film. Think whatever you wish of the main character - be he a saint, a Christ figure, an oddity, a rebel, or a Don Quixote, - can his story, in truth, end happily? It seems hard to come to any conclusions; the film does better than that. Being world acclaimed classics, Luis Buñuel's Nazarín will surely not appeal to anyone and everyone, but, in my opinion, such films are necessary - to remind people that they are human after all, to make them feel it.
As I said, I first watched the film, and read the book only a year later.
The first thing is that Buñuel's film is a rather free adaptation of the novel. He took some of the ideas, such as Galdós's rather strong anticlericalism (strong criticism of the church did not impede the writer's being thoroughly Christian in his principles), his social message, the ambiguity. Yet some scenes and their impact are completely changed, their meaning is reversed. Galdós was much more positive about his hero.
I must note that Buñuel was not so mysanthropic in his film as many critics seem to see. The finale is ambiguous and even mysterious. In the web, it is reported what the director himself said about it: in the end, Nazario begins to doubt. The doubt is like a cigarette lighted in your soul; it is your choice if you let the flame grow or extinguish it. (Sorry for the lame explanation, the page I found the quote on is deleted now and I quote from memory.)
The book contains even more. It can be read on different levels:
- as a story of a contemporary Christ (the events in don Nazario's life are parallel to those in Christ's; he travels; speaks to his disciples (Andara and Beatriz may be compared to St Peter and St John, the latter also to Mary Magdalene); speaks to the two robbers in prison, 'the good robber' and 'the bad robber'; then there is his own Via Crucis; all of this is sometimes heart-wrenching to read);
- as a parable about the spiritual journey of the soul;
- some even see it as an indirect representation of the creative writing process;
- the whole book is highly ambiguous, and at moments the reader is driven to doubt the identity of the heroic priest - what if he is just a fake and a clever beggar? (This attitude is resolved closer to the end of the novel.);
- the social message is striking and nearly revolutionary, as the author analyses the existing order of things and comes to the conclusion that it is unfair. The more technical progress, the poorer the poor! So all the progress serves nothing!
And the hero could really be compared to Don Quixote, as his misadventures are sometimes ironically presented, without any trace of irritating pathos. A Christ and a Don Quixote in one! That is something that scandalised some of Galdós's contemporaries at the time. :)
There is a lot more to be said about the book, but I have forgotten my notes in another city. I would like to write more. There is a wealth of thought in one little story that impresses me greatly.
There is a young idealistic Catholic priest don Nazario, who lives in a poorest room in a Mexican town. Prostitutes, thieves, and beggars are his everyday company, but he takes his vows in earnest and is ready to live through any humiliation for God - as he politely explains to two curious gentlemen at the very beginning of the story. The gentlemen will come and go, marvelling at the oddity, but the priest will have to learn by first hand what humiliation and suffering is. All begins when a drunken prostitute kills another and asks for don Nazario's help. Thus begins the story of what may be called his downfall, his almost Don Quixote-like wanderings across the land, a series of sad, incongruous adventures. The woman whom he saved joins him in his forced pilgrimage, as well as another girl, the beautiful, wronged and demented Beatriz, who worships him as a saint - and possibly loves him without knowing that.
The black-and-white realism of the film is stark and crude, with most of the limelight on the poor, the lowliest of people. The animal qualities, the rude compassion, the simplicity of thought and manner - every detail is there, nothing is forgotten. At the same time, it is impossible to limit it only to social satire and forget about religion... about life.
What is the characters' attitude to God and religion? Crazy pêle-mêle of superstitions. Stunningly strong fanaticism (one of the most horrifying scenes is when village women implore the priest to work a miracle for a sick girl). Nazario takes the Christian laws literally, but, paradoxically, the Church itself is opposed to that honest and direct pilgrim. A mystery for the well-fed, civilised clerics, he even becomes (in their eyes) a rebel and a heretic! More than that: his faith is simple, but real life is not. The truth of his beliefs may cause doubt. He can speak of God and paradise, but it means nothing to a dying woman who wants only her man. In prison, Nazario tries to endure patiently the cruel bullying, but gives in for a moment - and it is important that another convict's question about the meaning of his life shocks him profoundly: 'You are good, I am bad, still both of us are good for nothing'. ('Usted pa’el lado bueno, yo pa’el lado malo, ninguno de los dos servimos para nada'.) Moreover, sincere as the priest is, he is also blind to certain things, and learning to see proves painful.
There is certainly more to that incredible film than I can reasonably express in this poor post. It is necessary to say that the name of the actor who plays Nazarín is Francisco Rabal; note the well-organised plot, sequences of scenes carrying their meaning - that is, the scrupulous work of Buñuel; the total absence of music (which passed completely unnoticed by me, as the film holds your attention amazingly well even without music).
It is a greatly thought-provoking, disturbing, simple and complex film. Think whatever you wish of the main character - be he a saint, a Christ figure, an oddity, a rebel, or a Don Quixote, - can his story, in truth, end happily? It seems hard to come to any conclusions; the film does better than that. Being world acclaimed classics, Luis Buñuel's Nazarín will surely not appeal to anyone and everyone, but, in my opinion, such films are necessary - to remind people that they are human after all, to make them feel it.
As I said, I first watched the film, and read the book only a year later.
The first thing is that Buñuel's film is a rather free adaptation of the novel. He took some of the ideas, such as Galdós's rather strong anticlericalism (strong criticism of the church did not impede the writer's being thoroughly Christian in his principles), his social message, the ambiguity. Yet some scenes and their impact are completely changed, their meaning is reversed. Galdós was much more positive about his hero.
I must note that Buñuel was not so mysanthropic in his film as many critics seem to see. The finale is ambiguous and even mysterious. In the web, it is reported what the director himself said about it: in the end, Nazario begins to doubt. The doubt is like a cigarette lighted in your soul; it is your choice if you let the flame grow or extinguish it. (Sorry for the lame explanation, the page I found the quote on is deleted now and I quote from memory.)
The book contains even more. It can be read on different levels:
- as a story of a contemporary Christ (the events in don Nazario's life are parallel to those in Christ's; he travels; speaks to his disciples (Andara and Beatriz may be compared to St Peter and St John, the latter also to Mary Magdalene); speaks to the two robbers in prison, 'the good robber' and 'the bad robber'; then there is his own Via Crucis; all of this is sometimes heart-wrenching to read);
- as a parable about the spiritual journey of the soul;
- some even see it as an indirect representation of the creative writing process;
- the whole book is highly ambiguous, and at moments the reader is driven to doubt the identity of the heroic priest - what if he is just a fake and a clever beggar? (This attitude is resolved closer to the end of the novel.);
- the social message is striking and nearly revolutionary, as the author analyses the existing order of things and comes to the conclusion that it is unfair. The more technical progress, the poorer the poor! So all the progress serves nothing!
And the hero could really be compared to Don Quixote, as his misadventures are sometimes ironically presented, without any trace of irritating pathos. A Christ and a Don Quixote in one! That is something that scandalised some of Galdós's contemporaries at the time. :)
There is a lot more to be said about the book, but I have forgotten my notes in another city. I would like to write more. There is a wealth of thought in one little story that impresses me greatly.