Simon of the Desert
Ahh, asceticism. To be honest, I try to practice it a little in life now. Recently, I threw away a lot of things in order to fit all my belongings into the cabinets of my own room. In terms of volume, apart from the hideous wardrobe filled with stuff of my parents, I’d say that half of it are books, a quarter of it are documents from school and the rest is random crap, mostly memorabilia really. Only a fraction of this “random crap” is actually stuff I use frequently, and it’s now all in the small drawer which doubles as nightstand.
Another thing I try to do is to simply eat less, which does not quite go well with my desire to check out more places to eat in Berlin. As a restaurant city, Berlin bores me but perhaps I’m just wrong and I need to step up my game to make it as enticing to me food-wise as Atlanta, Philadelphia and Boston used to be. Travelling is a whole different issue – Lisbon was quite tough on my belly with its many, many pastelarias.
None of what I said really applies to Bunuel’s films, so I apologize for digressing. However, it’s a little difficult to write about this oddity of a film, mostly because I don’t really know what to make out of its ending. Apparently Bunuel wanted more scenes in the present, giving Simón an entire storyline there and make him interact with his surrounding, but personally I totally thought the desert parts were enough. The film probably wouldn’t make any difference to me if the last jump in time didn’t happen, especially since I have no idea what it was supposed to mean.
No, the best parts of the film are the ones where Simón interacts with with the devil and other characters (haha I loved the dwarf!) This was the funniest Bunuel film I saw (“Un chien andalou”, “L’age d’or” and “Belle de Jour” are all pretty un-funny), and I definitely appreciate his humor. The dwarf was my favorite! Also, Bunuel is so obsessed with catholicism hahaha. He may be an atheist but he’s one who keeps going back to his Catholic roots by mocking it. It’s probably tough to escape the claws of a strict Catholic upbringing in Spain, just like Salvador Dalí couldn’t.
While the premise “Simón from the pillar into the modern world” is a lovely idea, I am glad that “Simon of the Desert” ended up being mostly in the desert. I thought it was a funny short film and absolutely worth a look.