EL ****

"El" is still one of Luis Bunuel's greatest films. It is a story of obsession and jealousy and how obsession can lead to madness, (or is obsession itself a form of madness?), and it's relentless. It begins on Holy Thursday at mass when Don Francisco spies a young woman in the church. He follows her outside and though she's engaged to a friend of his, he pursues her and marries her and on their wedding night she discovers just how jealous he can be. Ultimately this jealousy has terrible consequences.

Of course, Don Francisco happens to be a pillar of society and the church and this is another devastating attack on Catholicism and on hypocrisy by its director. It is in many ways a horror film and is all the more disturbing for being so grounded in the everyday. As the mad Don Francisco, Arturo De Cordova is superb; it is, without doubt, the greatest role of his career while the beautiful Delia Garces perfectly captures the spirit of the terrified wife. Amazingly, it is one of the least revived of all Bunuel's films despite being up there with "Nazarin" and "Viridiana". A masterpiece that would make a great double bill with Hitchcock's "Vertigo", (it's the most self-consciously Hitchcockian of all of Bunuel's films).