Él

(This Strange Passion)

New Digital Restoration

featuring

Arturo de Córdova, Delia Garcés, Luis Beristáin, Aurora Walker,

This is a study of “mad love” gone truly mad amidst the neurotic compulsions of the haute bourgeoisie. The protagonist, Francisco, is a forty-year-old virgin holding out for perfect—and perfectly respectable—love. Francisco’s apparent self-possession masks a ruthless severity, and his romanticism girdles insane misogyny. He takes a young wife, who tries to adjust to the tyranny of his jealous behavior, until the evening he enters her room with some menacing instruments: a rope, needle and thread, scissors, cotton wool, and antiseptic. “The influence of de Sade is everywhere apparent in a scenario that the majority of the Mexican public took for a run-of-the-mill melodrama on jealousy,” wrote Ado Kyrou. Luis Buñuel said of the film: “The character is certainly pathetic. I am touched by this man possessed by such jealousy, such solitude and interior anguish, such exterior violence. I studied him like an insect.” 

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Luis Buñuel
  • Luis Alcoriza
Based On
  • a novel by Mercedes Pinto

Cinematographer
  • Gabriel Figueroa
Language
  • Spanish
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • DCP
  • 88 mins
Source
  • Janus Films

Event Accessibility

If you have any questions about accessibility or require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact us at bampfa@berkeley.edu or call us at (510) 642-1412 (during open hours) with as much advance notice as possible. More information on accessibility services.