Are Mexicans so lusty because the climate down there is so hot? Do Catholics have a thing for forbidden fruit? One thing that’s for sure is part of being macho is cruising a sidepiece.
Also, when it comes to what Mexicans think is funny, I can’t overemphasize how much mileage you can get from making fun of other people’s misfortune, flaws, and personal appearance. It’s different for Mexicans. I don’t think it’s seen as mean spirited as it is to wokesters.
Subida al cielo (1952, Luis Buñuel) drips with all the hothouse eroticism its tropical climate and surrealist imagery can evoke. The Eve in this garden is Lilia Prado, as RAQUEL. And if you’ve ever heard one of those gender inequality discussions where someone suggests that what were to happen if genders were switched between two people or characters in question would be either unacceptable or acceptable—the opposite of the source the comparison was based on—you’ll have an idea of how Raquel can stand as ideal of a male unabashedly racking up a list of all the women he’s bedded. You know, like what it means to one who plays the field—a sportfuck.
In other words think of it sounding something like: why is she perceived as a slut for making sexual advances to OLIVERIO and ELADIO but if a guy did it he’d be seen as virile, or at the very least free of condemnation. (Also it bothers me how in that early scene when Raquel is trying to get Oliverio’s attention and he flees from her the other men in the saloon cackle like a pack of hyenas.) But the magnificence of the plot of Subida al cielo is how well it playfully subverts genre conventions—so much so as to be to the point of feigning innocence.
Raquel wants to get laid. When she wants. With whom she wants. Forget all that crap about Oliverio’s terminally ill mom having her kids chiseling away at their inheritance on her deathbed; that’s boring and inessential. Although it feels like in a way this movie has to concede to deceptively be about Oliverio. Even better. It’s like because he’s a guy who just got married and is trying to do what’s right by the estate of his mother he’s noble or something.
The twist ending is a stunner. In a way it’s such a subtle twist I’d never noticed it before. But, that scene where Oliverio has that vision of Raquel eating of the apple and she says “I got what I wanted,” it’s as if she ate the forbidden fruit of the garden but irl gets away clean. And as if that weren’t thrillingly mischievous enough, Oliverio doesn’t suffer any punishment either—aside from him feeling swindled of his faithfulness to his newlywed bride.
Buñuel’s cinematic artistry is on full display, with say, starting with the intoxicating eroticism of Raquel hiking her wet skirt up as she exits the bus to wade in the shallow river and going for a dip in her swimsuit. And then foremost a whole giant chunk of the movie gives way to a full on surrealist dream sequence. What is essentially a sex fantasy Oli has about Raquel becomes charged with a moral gravitas as his desperate struggle against the will of his libido to submit to his faithful wife turns on him, revealing her face to now be that of Raquel as well. But visually, so much to appreciate. The tropical jungle in the bus! Eating his mother's knitting! What are those sheep doing there running around while Raquel and Oli are having sex? Oh, Don Luis. What a master.
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