El bruto (The Brute). 1953. Mexico. Directed by Luis Buñuel. Screenplay by Luis Alcoriza, Buñuel. With Pedro Armendáriz, Katy Jurado, Rosita Arenas, Andrés Soler. In Spanish; English subtitles. DCP. 81 min.
What should have been a sentimental populist fable about a dim-witted muscleman (Pedro Armendáriz ) who becomes an enforcer for an evil landlord (who may be his father) only to see the error of his ways is transformed by Buñuel and his screenwriter, Luis Alcoriza, into something far more complicated and perverse. As the landlord’s ambitious young wife, Katy Jurado introduces a countervailing force of anarchic female energy. “The film’s two most memorable scenes are one in which Miss Jurado teases her old father-in-law by letting him have his tequila only by sucking it off her index finger and, at the very end, a scene in which Miss Jurado has a very mysterious encounter with a rooster.” – Vincent Canby, The New York Times