Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles

Paris, 1930. Luis Buñuel is penniless after the scandal around his last film and nobody will give him work. His friend Ramón Acín is a sculptor and an anarchist; he makes a promise that sounds like a joke: if his lottery ticket comes up he will finance Buñuel's film. The ticket comes up. Acín keeps his word. The two go with a small crew to Las Hurdes, one of the poorest regions of Spain. The aim is a documentary. During the shoot Buñuel does not find the reality hard enough and stages some scenes himself. Acín objects. Salvador Simó directs. It is a Spanish and Dutch co-production made in animation. The source is Fermín Solís's comic. What it recounts is real; the Las Hurdes documentary was shot in 1933 and Ramón Acín did finance it with lottery money. Acín and his wife were killed in the first months of the Spanish Civil War, and the film states this at the end. Black and white footage from the real documentary is set among the animation. The matter it treats is the limit of documentary; whether a director who stages a scene is representing reality is argued directly. The film won the Goya for best animated feature. Its limit is scope; Buñuel's inner life is given through dream sequences and those sections stay detached from the narrative. Who it is for: viewers who like film history and animation made for adults. Who it is not for: the subject is closed, it asks for knowledge of Buñuel, and some scenes are uncomfortable in their treatment of animals.