Two down, ten to go: "Illusion Travels By Streetcar," Luis Bunuel, 1954

In my mis­sion to see twelve films that I’ve admit­ted to not hav­ing seen des­pite the fact that I ought to have seen them already (see here), I ordered an obscure-label DVD of Luis Bunuel’s 1954 com­edy La Ilusion viaja en tran­via (Illusion Travels By Streetcar), and braced myself for the worst. 

So let me start with some good news: the Alter’s Collection disc, part of its “Vive Mexico—Cine en 35mm” series, is by no means a dis­grace. It’s a com­pet­ent trans­fer of a not-bad print, and extremely watch­able. At 18 bucks and over from vari­ous Amazon sellers, I would­n’t quite call it a bar­gain. But if you are in a spot like mine, cer­tainly worth it.

As to the film itself: In the con­text of the Bunuel’s filmo­graphy (I feel like tak­ing a few puffs off of a long-stemmed pipe right about now, for some reas­on), this can be seen as some­thing of a break between the amour fou intens­it­ies of the pri­or El and the sub­sequent Abismos de Pasion. Indeed, one of the most inter­est­ing fea­tures of the film is its approv­ing treat­ment of what most of us would call a “nor­mal” romantic pair­ing. The hap­less co-protagonist “Curly” Juan (Carlos Navarro) spends much of the film pur­su­ing his best pal Tarrajas’ gor­geous sis­ter Lupita (Lilia Prado), and by the film’s end, when it’s clear they’re togeth­er for good, you root for them as you might in a con­ven­tion­al film.

Which is what Ilusion is…in some respects. The title makes it sound like the film could be a sort of sur­real city trek, which it’s not. “I don’t like the title and did­n’t choose it,” Bunuel told crit­ics Jose de la Colina and Tomas Perez Turrent. (Bunuel does have one sur­real pub­lic trans­it pic­ture in his oeuvre, the ter­rif­ic 1952 Subida al Cielo (Ascent to Heaven) aka Mexican Bus Ride, which is avail­able on a nice British Region 2 DVD.) This story of two dis­con­sol­ate bud­dies who take their beloved street­car, which is about to be decom­mis­sioned, on one last late-night joy ride—with calam­it­ous results—is, among oth­er things, a great, com­pas­sion­ate por­trait of a city and its work­ing classes. The sequence in which a night shift of slaughter­house work­ers gets an unex­pec­ted lift home and runs slightly afoul of a couple of reli­gious pil­grims (one of whom sniffs, “this free ride is pretty fishy”) is a mini-masterpiece of com­ic nuance, with the char­ac­ters’ mutu­al sus­pi­cions and incho­ate fel­low feel­ing curving and straight­en­ing likes the street­car tracks them­selves. Colina and Turrent asked Bunuel is the pic­ture was influ­enced by the Italian neo-realists, and Bunuel acknow­ledged a resemb­lance: “It’s pos­sible, because we see diverse aspects of Mexican social reality…[b]ut I did­n’t think about Italian cinema; neor­eal­ism does­n’t appeal to me.” And indeed, Ilusion has a light­ness of tone that the Italians wer­en’t much inter­ested in. The com­ic inter­ac­tion between Juan and the older, putat­ively wiser Tarrajas (Fernando Soto) rather resembles a couple of bud­dies who would soon cap­ture the ima­gin­a­tion of North America’s tele­vi­sion watch­ers: Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton. And it’s not just the street­car angle. These are guys who dream big, don’t quite make it, and still man­age to taste quite a few of life’s pleas­ures. The mul­tiple nar­rat­ive they encounter on their errant street­car ride also look ahead to such multi-story Bunuel mas­ter­pieces as The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Milky Way (indeed, that film’s hitch­hik­ing pair Pierre and Jean are dir­ect des­cend­ants of Juan and Tarrajas), and The Phantom of Liberty. Great stuff.

By the way, thanks to every­one who’s been steer­ing me to TV screen­ings of some of my twelve. Kazan’s Wild River has been run­ning on the Fox Movie Channel, and I’d catch it, except my cable ser­vice does­n’t carry said chan­nel. Drat.