''Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan'' (English: ''Land Without Bread'' or ''Unpromised Land'') is a 1933 French-language Spanish
pseudo-documentary (
ethnofiction) directed by
Luis Buñuel and co-produced by Buñuel and
Ramón Acin. The narration was written by Buñuel, , and
Pierre Unik, with cinematography by
Eli Lotar
Eli Lotar (born Eliazar Lotar Teodorescu; January 30, 1905 – May 10, 1969) was a French photographer and cinematographer.
Lotar was born in Paris, the son of Tudor Arghezi, a Romanian poet, and Constanța Zissu, a teacher. http://www.ziarul ...
.
Synopsis
The film focuses on the
Las Hurdes
Las Hurdes (; Extremaduran: ''Las Jurdis'') is a ''comarca'' in the Sistema Central, at the northern end of the province of Cáceres in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura, Spain. A well-known historical region, Las Hurdes is currently a Site ...
region of Spain, the mountainous area around the town of
La Alberca, and the intense poverty of its occupants, who were so backwards and isolated that bread was unknown. A main source of income for them was taking in orphan children, for whom they received a government subsidy. Buñuel, who made the film after reading the
ethnographic study
Ethnography (from Greek language, Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view ...
''Las Jurdes: étude de géographie humaine'' (1927) by , took a
Surrealist approach to the notion of the
anthropological
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
expedition. The result was a
travelogue in which the narrator’s extreme (indeed, exaggerated) descriptions of human misery of Las Hurdes contrasts with his flat and uninterested manner.
Cast
* Abel Jacquin (voice)
*
Alexandre O'Neill (voice, dubbed version)
Production
Buñuel claimed:
"I was able to film Las Hurdes thanks to Ramon Acin, an
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
from
Huesca,...who one day at a cafe in
Zaragoza
Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...
told me, 'Luis, if I ever won the lottery, I would put up the money for you to make a film.' He won a hundred thousand
pesetas...and gave me twenty thousand to make the film. With four thousand I bought a
Fiat
Fiat Automobiles S.p.A. (, , ; originally FIAT, it, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino, lit=Italian Automobiles Factory of Turin) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, formerly part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and since 2021 a subsidiary ...
; Pierre Unik came, under contract from ''
Vogue
Vogue may refer to:
Business
* ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine
** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine
** ''Vogue China'', ...
'' to write an article; and Eli Lotar arrived with a camera loaned by
Marc Allégret
Marc Allégret (22 December 1900 – 3 November 1973) was a French screenwriter, photographer and film director.
Biography
Born in Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland, he was the elder brother of Yves Allégret. Marc was educated to be a lawyer in ...
."
The movie is a pseudo-documentary, parodying the exaggerated documentaries of travelers across the Sahara being filmed at the same time.
[Ruoff, Jeffrey]
An Ethnographic Surrealist Film: Luis Buñuel's Land Without Bread.
Visual Anthropology Review 14, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1998), 45-57 One of Buñuel's points is that there are plenty of terrible subjects for a documentary right in Spain.
The film was originally
silent, though Buñuel himself narrated when it was first shown. A French narration by actor
Abel Jacquin
Abel Jacquin (1893–1968) was a French actor who appeared in more than thirty films between 1930 and 1956. Jacquin co-directed the 1933 comedy film '' Les deux 'Monsieur' de Madame''. He was also noted for his narration of the 1933 documentary '' ...
was added in Paris in 1935. Buñuel used extracts of
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...
'
Symphony No. 4 for the music.
Buñuel slaughtered at least two animals to make ''Las Hurdes''. One Hurdano claimed that he arranged for an ailing donkey to be covered with honey so he could film it being stung to death by
bees
Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamil ...
. Similarly, his crew shot a mountain goat that subsequently fell from a cliff for another sequence.
Premiere and censorship
The premiere took place in December 1932 at Madrid's
Palacio de la Prensa
The Palacio de la Prensa is a brick-clad building in Madrid, Spain.
History and description
It is located in the Gran Vía, near the Callao Square, in the Universidad neighborhood.
Commissioned by the Madrid Press Association (APM) to serve ...
.
The entire intellectual cream of the Spanish capital was invited to a semi-private show.
The screening of the film in its first, still silent version was accompanied by music played from the turntable and the narrator's commentary personally read by Buñuel himself.
During the premiere show there was a schism between the director and
Gregorio Marañón
Gregorio Marañón y Posadillo, OWL (19 May 1887 in Madrid – 27 March 1960 in Madrid) was a Spanish physician, scientist, historian, writer and philosopher. He married Dolores Moya in 1911, and they had four children (Carmen, Belén, María ...
,
a former assistant to King
Alfonso XIII of Spain
Alfonso XIII (17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African, was King of Spain from 17 May 1886 to 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He was a monarch from birth as his father, Alf ...
during his trip to the Las Hurdes region in 1922 and the former director of the Royal Patronage (Spanish ''Patronato Real''), an organization formed shortly after the trip to improving the situation of the inhabitants of the region.
''Land Without Bread'' provoked such an uproar in Spain that conservative forces banned the distribution of the image throughout the country.
The official reason for the censorship record was "defamation of the good name of the Spanish people."
It was banned
from 1933 to 1936.
Reception
Writing for ''
Night and Day'' in 1937,
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
gave the film a neutral review, describing it as "
honest and hideous picture,
..free from propaganda". Greene claimed that it had a powerful effect and that it was "enough to shake anyone's complacency or self-pity".
[ (reprinted in: )]
In modern times, critical reception for ''Land Without Bread'' has been mostly positive. Ed Gonzalez from ''
Slant Magazine
''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...
'', for example, awarded the film 4 out of 4 stars, writing, "''Las Hurdes'' becomes a frightening call to arms, a fabulous open text that resists simple readings and questions humanity's notion of progress."
Jeffrey Ruoff called it a "revolutionary film."
''
Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles'' is a 2018 Spanish-Dutch animated film based on the graphic novel ''Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas'' by
Fermín Solís. It covers how Buñuel and his crew filmed at Las Hurdes.
References
External links
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{{Darius Milhaud
1933 documentary films
1933 films
Filmed deaths of animals
Films directed by Luis Buñuel
Films scored by Darius Milhaud
1930s French-language films
Las Hurdes
Media bias controversies
Animal cruelty incidents in film
Social realism in film
Spanish black-and-white films
Spanish documentary films
Spanish short films
Spanish silent films
Extremadura in fiction