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Both a comedic and chilling film by famed director Luis Buńuel. The last of his “Mexican” period dubbed by some as a time that his films were more commercial… certainly true in comparison to his later works in which he was granted much more artistic freedom. “The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz”, “El” and “Los Olvidados”, all made in Mexico, brought Buñuel international acclaim and it was in these films that he developed his style with trademark surreal, unpredictable imagery with biting and often grim social observations. |
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The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz by Luis Buñuel Review of the film and DVD by Gary W. Tooze |
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When Archibaldo de la Cruz was a young boy he had an incident that would strongly formulate his adult persona. While hearing a story from his attractive Nanny regarding the power to murder through ownership of a Music Box, she is accidentally killed by a stray bullet from a political uprising. As a grown, wealthy bachelor, Archie attempts to relive his sexual awakening at seeing her legs, stockings and garters when the bullet felled her. |
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| Gripping you with his depth of characterization and lack of fear as a director, Buñuel creates sublime artistic cinema merely touching on dark perversions, eroticism and criminal intent. Archibaldo feeling that the re-found music box is compelling him to indulge the practices of a serial killer, finds his careful plotting and scheming continually falls short of its intended target. The plot walks the fine line between true horror, bizarre sexual lust and cynicism over Buñuel’s usual foibles of the rich, macho men and sexual and religious perceptions. Unaware of the direction the film will take us next we sit quietly pondering while being treated to some excellent well-choreographed cinematography. |  |
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As Archie’s pathological compulsion is abated when his bride, whom he intended on murdering on the honeymoon, is shot dead by her ex-boyfriend immediately after the ceremony. The police that he confronts after the shooting inform him that he is free to go as he has committed no crime and so he throws his tool of psychosis, the music box, into the lake. As if on cue he runs into an old potential flame (another he had attempted to murder unsuccessfully). We are grown to the impression that Archie will be all right now… a normal functioning member of society. Hardly true, but we are left desiring further exploits of this charismatic killer-wanna-be. | |
| How to describe it ? How about a light, surrealistic, pornographic murder-comedy? I was reminded of Buñuel’s “El” for the hazy reflections of formulating youthful influences and also of Chaplin’s “Monsieur Verdoux” for the dark comedic aspect of attempts at murdering women. | ||
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FILM and DVD Details |
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| This is the first feature on the DVD that includes Buñuel’s “El”. Although I would rate “El” the better film, both are great to see the continued development and formulation of Buñuel’s style. The images are very clear and the sound pretty clear tolerable. I did find the volume decrease slightly near the end of the film, but nothing a punch of your remote button won’t fix. It is chaptered with removable subtitle choices . Buy this DVD today… it is more than worth the price! | ||
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