Abismos de pasión (Wuthering Heights). 1954. Mexico. Directed by Luis Buñuel. Screenplay by Buñuel, Julio Alejandro. With Irasema Dilián, Jorge Mistral, Lilia Prado, Ernesto Alonso. In Spanish; English subtitles. 35mm. 91 min.
Buñuel had originally planned an adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Gothic novel back in the early 30s with the French Surrealist writer Pierre Unik but was unable to find the financing after the international scandal of L’Age d’or. Realized twenty years later in Mexico, the film is perhaps s purest treatment of the quintessential Surrealist theme, l’amour fou, with his Catherine and Heathcliffe, transformed into Catalina (the unsettling Polish-Brazilian actor Irasema Dilián) and Alejandro (Jorge Mistral, the bad boy of Mexican cinema) hurling themselves at each other with no regard for social propriety or even the existence of other people. Buñuel is still experimenting with dramatic lighting and odd camera angles, devices he would gradually abandon as he developed his limpid, late style, but which here add a lot of flavor and fun to the extravagant proceedings.