Bunuel

SIMON OF THE DESERT-1965- Penitent Simon (Claudio Brook) has stood on a high column in the desert for over six years so he can be closer to God. Priests and followers now gather as he is given a new taller tower. After refusing a blessing from a priest because he believes himself unworthy he ascends the new tower and promptly restores the hands of a man who had them cut off for stealing. The man's first act is to abuse his child. The crowd seems unimpressed by this and leaves. Later Simon is tempted several times by the devil who takes the form of a woman (Silvia Pinal) dressed like a little girl, then as a shepherdess (with a beard!) and later as a scantily clad female who arrives in a moving coffin. Satan takes him away and they wind up in a modern '60's disco where the band plays surf guitar music and young people do the newest dance crazed called “Radioactive Flesh”! When Simon says he wants to go home he's told he has to “stick it out till the end”. 

 Although only 43 minutes long SIMON somehow manages to be surrealist director Luis Bunuel's most anarchistic outing and continues his long obsession with the mocking of organized religion. It's also hilarious! The short running time owes to the fact that Bunuel simply ran out of money after less than three weeks worth of filming. He followed this two years later with BELLE de JOUR. 

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