(Luis Bu�uel, 1951; 1952, 12, Mr Bongo)
After his two avant- garde collaborations with fellow surrealist Salvador Dali ? Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L'Age d'Or (1930) ? Luis Bu�uel disappeared below the radar in Mexico until reappearing at Cannes with Los Olvidados in 1951. He continued working there until re-establishing himself in Europe in the 1960s as one of the great directors. His mostly little-known Mexican films ? rough-hewn, low-budget melodramas for the most part ? are always interesting, and these two early ones complement each other as they explore characteristic themes of lust, cruelty, class, hypocrisy and corruption. In Susana, a satanic femme fatale offers up successful prayers for escape from her hellhole of a reform school and proceeds to ingratiate herself into a wealthy bourgeois family where she proceeds to destroy everyone around her. In El Bruto, a violent, ox-like abattoir worker (the great Pedro Armend�riz) is hired to do a slum landlord's dirty work and is destroyed by his corrupt employer and his beautiful young wife (the magnificent Katy Jurado, who became a Hollywood star that same year in High Noon). Significant bricks in a major oeuvre.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/20/french-classic-dvd-susana-bruto
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