Bu-uel returned to Spain after twenty-three years' exile to make Viridiana, which was then banned in Spain. Viridiana longs to become a nun, but on the eve of taking her vows, she makes a final visit to the home of her lecherous uncle (Fernando Rey in a rehearsal for Tristana). He sees in her the reincarnation of his bride, in whose aura (and wedding gown) he languishes long after her death on their wedding night. Needless to say, Viridiana never does return to the convent; instead, she turns her uncle's estate into a haven for society's outcasts. People must become completely human before they can become saints, Viridiana, like Nazar?before her, seems to assert. The complete surrender of the spiritual world to materialism is nowhere better evoked than in the famous beggar's banquet, a revisionist Last Supper. Erotic and religious obsession attain a rich realism and finally a simplicity in Viridiana. "What is it that people take exception to?" Bu-uel asked. "My heroine is more virginal at the end than she wasin the beginning."