Susana (film)

This article is about a Mexican film. For other uses, see Susana (disambiguation).

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1951 Mexican film

Susana

Theatrical poster

Directed by| Luis Buñuel
Written by| Luis Buñuel
Jaime Salvador
Rodolfo Usigli
Based on| Susana
by Manuel Reachi
Produced by| Sergio Kogan
Manuel Reachi
Starring| Rosita Quintana
Fernando Soler
Cinematography| José Ortiz Ramos
Edited by| Jorge Bustos
Music by| Raúl Lavista

Release date

* 1951 (1951)

Running time

| 82 minutes
Country| Mexico
Language| Spanish

Susana (Spanish: Susana, demonio y carne; also The Devil and the Flesh) is a 1951 film directed by Luis Buñuel. It is the story of a girl of questionable mental stability who escapes from incarceration and ends up at a plantation where she disrupts a working family's daily routines and chemistry. Susana is full of the unique touches of Buñuel's surrealism.

## Plot

[edit]

Susana, is a beautiful inmate of a reformatory. When first seen, Susana is thrown into a solitary cell with bats and rats for misbehaving and the correction officer says Imagine, she's been here two years and is worse than ever!. In her cell, she asks for God's help, facing a shadow of the cross formed by the window bars from where a spider crawls away. She manages to pull the bars across the window away from the rotting walls and escapes into the rainy night.

She ends up at a ranch who gives her shelter after she gives an invented history. She soon entices the men, who become obsessed with possessing her and end up fighting over her: Jesús, the ranch foreman; Alberto, the family's teenage son; and Guadalupe, Alberto's father, "a God-fearing man and the faithful husband of the beautiful, patient Dona Carmen".

## Cast

[edit]

* Fernando Soler as Don Guadalupe
* Rosita Quintana as Susana
* Víctor Manuel Mendoza as Jesús
* María Gentil Arcos as Felisa
* Luis López Somoza as Alberto
* Matilde Palou as Doña Carmen
* Rafael Icardo as Don Severiano, veterinary
* Enrique del Castillo as Reformatory official

## Analysis

[edit]

Gilles Deleuze in his work Cinema 1: The Movement Image talks about the impulse-image in Susana "that achieves the complete exhaustion of a milieu: mother, servant, son and father. The impulse must be exhaustive. It is not even sufficient to say that the impulse contents itself with what a milieu gives it or leaves to it. This contentment is not resignation, but a great joy in which the impulse rediscovers its power of choice, since it is, at the deepest level, the desire to change milieu, to seek a new milieu to explore, to dislocate, enjoying all the more what this milieu offers, however low, repulsive or disgusting it may be. The joys of the impulse cannot be measured against the affect, that is, against the intrinsic qualities of the possible object."[page needed]

## Critical response

[edit]

In his 2015 publication of movie ratings, Leonard Maltin wrote 'Well handled and staged by Buñuel till the cop-out finale.[1]

## Release

[edit]

Susana was released on DVD on 27 November 2007.[2]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Leonard Maltin's movie guide 2015 edition
2. ^ "Susana". DVD Talk. Retrieved 19 June 2024.

## External links

[edit]

* Susana at IMDb

* v
* t
* e

Luis Buñuel

* Filmmaking technique
* Filmography

Films
directed|

* Un Chien Andalou (1929)
* L'Age d'Or (1930)
* Land Without Bread (1933)
* Gran Casino (1947)
* The Great Madcap (1949)
* Los Olvidados (1950)
* Susana (1951)
* Daughter of Deceit (1951)
* Mexican Bus Ride (1952)
* A Woman Without Love (1952)
* El Bruto (1953)
* Él (1953)
* Illusion Travels by Streetcar (1954)
* Wuthering Heights (1954)
* Robinson Crusoe (1954)
* The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955)
* The River and Death (1955)
* Cela s'appelle l'aurore (1956)
* Death in the Garden (1956)
* Nazarín (1959)
* La Fièvre Monte à El Pao (1959)
* The Young One (1960)
* Viridiana (1961)
* The Exterminating Angel (1962)
* Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)
* Simon of the Desert (1965)
* Belle de Jour (1967)
* The Milky Way (1969)
* Tristana (1970)
* The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
* The Phantom of Liberty (1974)
* That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)

Works about|

* Little Ashes (2008 film)
* Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles (2018 film)

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