The Brute

A tenement is to be demolished and the tenants will not leave. The owner, Andrés, hires Pedro, a huge man who works at the slaughterhouse: his job is to frighten the tenants out of their homes. Pedro does the job, but one day he goes too far and a man dies. Meeting Meche, the dead man's daughter, he does not tell her who he is, and he falls in love with her. Meanwhile Paloma, his employer's wife, is using Pedro for her own ends. This is one of the films Luis Buñuel made during his Mexican period. The narrative runs in melodramatic shape, but Buñuel's interest is not in Pedro's brute strength; it is that he never learned to think. The man is not evil; he only does what he is told, and that is the film's real subject. Pedro Armendáriz plays Pedro, Katy Jurado plays Paloma, and Rosita Arenas plays Meche. Who it's for: Viewers who like Buñuel's Mexican period, class-based melodrama, and Latin American cinema of the 1950s. Who it's not for: The structure is confined to studio melodrama and Buñuel's familiar manner is sparse here. The writing of the women also runs in the shapes of the period.