Buñuel & Surrealist Activism - Land Without Bread

Andrea Chin Sang

Professor Tomás Crowder-Taraborrelli

CORE 200

Buñuel & Surrealist Activism

In the surrealist travel documentary Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan (1933), director and writer Luis Buñuel hyperbolizes the concept of ethnographic films as presented by Western anthropologists. Buñuel claims that “the purpose of surrealism was…to explode the social order, to transform life itself,” quoted in his autobiography, My Last Sigh (1984). The film is self-described as a “cinematic essay of human geography” documenting the lives of the impoverished village communities of the Las Hurdes region of Spain. By portraying an isolated, overlooked region of Spain in a surrealist and disturbing way, social issues of poverty and inequality are exaggerated to a grotesque degree. In this way, Buñuel bridges what Vladimir Lenin describes as:

“a clear distinction between the interests of the oppressed class, of working and

exploited people, and the general concept of national interests as a whole, which

implies the interests of the ruling class” (Lenin Anthology, 1975).

The public outrage towards the film resulted in national debate amongst the classes, ultimately forcing Spain and the rest of Europe to face the obscured horrors of life under political oppression and economic depression.

While stereotyping the people of Las Hurdes (refered to as the Hurdanos) and portraying them as a backwards community, Buñuel highlights issues of poverty and inequality, historically associated with non-Western and non-Anglican societies, within a European (specifically Spanish) context. The combination of exaggerated visuals and narration from a detached French narrator (disconnected as foreigner to Spain’s culture yet geographically related as a European), the Hurdanos serve as a depiction of backwardness in a rapidly modernizing world. The title of the film itself, “Tierra Sin Pan” or “Land Without Bread”, refers to the fact that “until recently [1930’s], bread was almost unknown in Las Hurdes,” further suggesting that the region was extremely isolated from development and resources.

According to the film, the poor quality of the land surrounding villages within the region make agricultural development difficult to undertake, while limited resources do not allow for animals to prosper, thus leaving the Hurdanos without sources of food. Many of the villagers are said to be sick, as general malnutrition, poor hygiene and virus carrying insects contribute to the spread of disease. The visualization of these poor living conditions reflect an era of the past hardly touched by modern technology and development, as Buñuel comments on the harm rapid urbanization and industrial capitalism causes for the rural poor without access to equal resources. Buñuel utilizes shocking imagery to cast attention upon the destitution within his country, shedding a light to issues often portrayed as foreign to the Western world. Though many of the clips portray the Hurdanos as an unsophisticated society portrayed throughout cultural ethnographies, some of Buñuel’s more subjective lines attempt to humanize the Hurdanos simultaneously. As James Baldwin writes in the preface to Notes of a Native Son, “the Civilized have never been able to honor, recognize, or describe the Savage,” and continues to be a concept challenged by Buñuel (1984). The Hurdanos have the contradictory identity of being civilized savages, both within reaching distance of civilization yet lacking the resources to foster growth.

As the film flashes clips of extreme poverty and villages ravaged by disease, hunger, and barren land, the French narrator claims that “our duty to be objective demands that we show” the audience devastating images of Las Hurdes. Within the same sequence, however, the narrator describes Hurdanos as barbaric, savage-like, and backward. Las Hurdes serves as Buñuel’s commentary on the conception of documentary recording human life and how others experiences are presented to the public. He satirizes the concept of objectivity by using subjective language in the narration, and goes as far as visually and physically manipulating imagery with the camera lens to construct a specific narrative of poverty in the “inhospitable region”. Buñuel emphasizes the fact that no person—artist, scientist or any other profession—can be completely objective. In the words of John Dewey, the human experience itself is a source of art and knowledge, one “does not remain a cold spectator” to life because it is impossible to do so as conscious human beings (Art, 1934). Life experiences contribute to one’s individual assumptions and unique biases that will impact the way one views the world.

Through decidedly controversial methods, Buñuel condemned the politics of his country for abandoning the isolated, oppressed and impoverished while portraying their lives in extremely callus and almost cruel scenes. The film’s concluding paragraph reveals the political agenda at the heart of the film—that “the destitution that this film [shows]…is not irremediable,” that cooperation of oppressed people can reinstate “calm and happiness…[in] the place of the civil war”. Buñuel slowly unveils his own message towards activism, contradicting his own portrayal of Las Hurdes. He calls for collectivism amongst the people, “peasants and workers…improving their living conditions by working together, helping each other and appealing to the Public Authorities” in order to take back their rights from the bourgeois elite who control the world’s access to modernity and power.

            I personally find this method of activism outrageous, yet highly intriguing. While I commend Buñuel for his accomplishments in merging his own political messages against abuses of power and inequality, I find his exploitation of the Hurdanos questionable. As he was fighting for people to recognize the humanity of the poor and underprivileged, his methods to shock the world resulted in a dark image of squalor and death to be cast upon the region. I find that it is the responsibility of artists and activists to start conversations about important political and cultural issues within their communities (and hopefully the world), but it should be done ethically and in a way that empowers the disenfranchised.

Bibliography

Baldwin, J. (1984). Notes of a native son. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Buñuel, L. (Director). Jacquin, A. (Narrator). (1933). Las hurdes: tierra sin pan [Motion picture].

Dewey, J. (1934). The live creature, art as experience. New York, NY: The Penguin Group.

Lenin, V. (1975). Communism and the east: theses on the national and colonial questions. In R. C. 

     Tucker (Ed.), The Lenin anthology. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.