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Luis Bunuel 2-Disc Collector's Edition (Gran Casino / The Young Ones) |
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Home: You are here: DVD : Luis Bunuel 2-Disc Collector's Edition (Gran Casino / The Young Ones) |
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Luis Bunuel 2-Disc Collector's Edition (Gran Casino / The Young Ones)  Rating: Rating:  - Two very different films/two very different transfersLa Joven: A black jazz musician on the run from a lynch mob stumbles across the game warder of a private island and the young, innocent girl the warder guards over. Sweet and precocious Evy is almost completely unaware of the world outside her isolated island and unable to defend against the advances of her guardian, while also not comprehending the nature of the problem with the musician's arrival. Bunuel's more well-known films are very impressive, but some of his lesser-known films aren't given enough attention for what they are. "La Joven" is a parable of innocence brought suddenly up against racism, exploitation, and sex, and as a whole is a very morally ambiguous film. Ultimately, the question must be asked: is one man's life being paid for by the freedom of a young girl, or will she choose a different, completely unfamiliar life full of its own trials? Those are the questions left with the audience by the movie's conclusion. Bunuel's mastery is reinforced by how well he is able to get into the regional dialect, settings, and character of this film. Here is a director who has shot movies from all over the world and managed to give a rather distinctive feel for each of the locations they've been made in. Gran Casino: Two things: 1) I am not the audience for this movie: I don't like musicals in general, I don't recognize the popular songs featured, and I honestly prefer Bunuel's darker movies; 2) however, this movie was still very spectacular (in the truest definition of the word) and is a real testament to Bunuel's gift of visual storytelling. Basically, the idea here is that a couple of prison escapees (what they did is unclear, but I'm pretty sure they were just taken in for vagrancy) get a job at a oil speculation site just before a series of murders begins to unveil a conspiracy set against the owner. The owner's sister appears, capturing the heart of one of the leads, and now it's a process of figuring out whodunnit, comment on the political motivation (with oil there's always a political commentary, even back when), get the girl despite the usual misunderstandings, and, yes, sing. Many people don't recognize that Bunuel also had the ability to be a popular entertainer. "A Woman without Love" is a testament to that fact, as well as this movie. For what it's worth, this movie really wouldn't feel all that out of place as a studio musical classic, only it just happened to be Spanish. What I liked best is that all of the music is diegetic: the sound and singing originate within the narrative and the story doesn't necessarily stop just to have people sing. The songs fit in as realistically as possible in the world, covering up for the sound of prison escape, setting a moment of hopeful joy, performances in the background... some of the songs are interrupted by the audience, some of them are stopped because they're practice, and a lot of them feature some dazzling uses of realism in environment and choreography. So for what it's worth, Bunuel scored big time on that. A comment on the DVD set: The copy I had mixed up the disc art so that the movies were reversed based on what the disc said it contained. It wasn't that big of an issue as both movies were ultimately included, it's just a curiosity I thought I should mention. Also, the transfer of Gran Casino isn't all that great, featuring missing frames and some jumps in sound, not to mention a lack of subtitles for the song routines. La Joven looked and sounded great, though. Overall, an interesting set, but not the greatest pairing. --PolarisDiB Rating:  - Leaves a lasting impressionBig fan of Bunuel, got the DVD's, Grand Casino two stars, the Young one, five stars. I was surprised by how fresh it felt even though it's close to fifty years old. Worth having in your DVD library just for the young one alone. Rating: - neglected BunuelFirst off, AMAZON, it's THE YOUNG ONE, not THE YOUNG ONES. I tried to watch GRAN CASINO first. The discs were mislabeled, so I got to see THE YOUNG ONE instead. The mislabeling of discs in a premium "collector's edition" was surprising. THE YOUNG ONE is set on a island populated by a white game warden and a 13 year old orphan girl in his care. A black musician is accused of rape by a crazy white drunken dowager, and flees a lynch mob in a boat. Guess which island he washes up on. Did I mention that this film is provocative? Way before it's time, the film died at the box office upon release in 1961. The few audiences, black and white, that saw the film back then expressed a desire to lynch Bunuel. The black fugitive and white warden play hide and seek around the island. We see the orphan's naked legs. The warden rapes the orphan. The fugitive and warden threaten each other with guns and grenades. We see the orphan's naked feet. A hypocritical reverend and a racist boatman come to the island to baptize the orphan. This is about where I starting losing track of who was supposed to be the good guys and bad guys. Adding to the moral ambiguity, the orphan doesn't seem to see herself as a victim, dissembling when the suspicious reverend asks what's going on. Filmed in English in glorious black and white, THE YOUNG ONE is a long unavailable gem that easily justifies the cost of the package. GRAN CASINO is in Spanish with English subtitles. The film is a semi-musical vehicle for some Mexican stars of the day. The stars do lots of singing and dancing *YAWN*. There's a dash of social commentary with the titular lavish casino contrasted with the oil field that supplies the wealth, but nothing close to the whallop of THE YOUNG ONE. The high rating is on the basis of THE YOUNG ONE, which has previously only been available in foreign formats for about $30. GRAN CASINO is pure fluff and an ill fit in the package. It begs the question why Bunuel's other English film, ROBINSON CRUSOE, wasn't bundled instead. Rating: - Two absolutely wonderful moviesFor a long time I thought Luis Buñuel was an arty, removed kind of director. Thanks to DVDs like the ones in this edition it slowly dawns on me that he was extremely prolific and was also adept at tackling different genres. Gran Casino is a kind of a melodrama with humor and songs - it reminded me of Hollywood movies of the 1930s. A lot of the action takes place in the night club cum casino. There is a very long take of a singer who descends the stage, making her way through the audience along the periphery of the room and back to the stage, all the time singing, while the camera performs a 360 degree turn - it's very neat. The main character is a singer from Argentina, she performs a few of the best known tangos accompanied by a moody but competent pianist. There even is a tiny surrealist element: one dance number is performed with the dancers clutching tiny electrical torches which are absolutely out of place and do not seem to belong to the period the movie is set in. With those torches they pick out members of the audience. The Young Ones is a very beautifully filmed drama in English concerning the coming of age of a girl in a very removed place. The girl reminded me a little of the movie Nell. An African American who has to run from an enraged mob seems to be the first real contact with the outside world. He is a clarinetist, music is an important item of this movie. The way nature is depicted reminded me of movies by Jean Renoir, it's almost like a painting. I spent a marvellous time with these two movies. Luis Bunuel 2-Disc Collector's Edition (Gran Casino / The Young Ones) 1 2
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