LogFAQs > #986107352

Bunuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles (2018) B

Man it feels kind of weird to do this write up after the fact. Hopefully you guys dont kill any of the rest of my top ten (well, nine as I did get one other write up done) before Im back from vacation. SHOW SOME MERCY. It is weird because it feels a bit more reactionary and everyone else here pretty much hated this one. Reading through the other write-ups, I do get where most of you are coming from, but I dont completely agree. Bunuel is a very important figure and theyre covering this well-known work of his where these bad things did happen. This movie didnt do them. You could argue it was gratuitous but even that Im not sure of. If you asked me to name a film in this list with a gratuitous scene, this absolutely would not be the first one that comes to mind. I thought the use of real footage of the documentary interspliced throughout the fictional story covering it was great and really interesting and added actual context to what the original graphic novel and this film were about.

The first two thirds of this movie were great . You see this slow descent Bunuel is going through, and the line blurs between what he is doing for the cause and what is is doing out of pure vanity. The opening scene where all these artists are discussing how important they are in combating fascism you get that immediate context for why Bunuel is focused on this thing that is this intense critique of the Spanish government. But then the cracks start to form. Things he heard are either fictionalized or taking too long and he has to put his thumb on the scale to make this honest-ish examination in the life of the most impoverished part of Spain. He has this unhealthy obsession with Dali and his father and you have to start to wonder which of his actions is he doing because he thinks this work is important, and what he is doing because he thinks HE is important. Hes this sort of charming genius but then the longer you look at him, the worse he is. To his crew, to the people hes supposed to be helping, to his best friend. It is interesting and well made and funny a couple of my hardest laughs in this whole list were at this film. I was absolutely on board with what they seemed to be building to.

With that being said though, where the movie does fail for me is in the way it treats Bunuel. You get the distinct impression the creator here has fallen in love with Bunuel, and as such I dont think the resolution really feels satisfactory. You see this sometimes where an author falls in love with a character and theyre almost blind to this monster they made. I dont care how much you like the character youve made, you cant provide excuses for them or ignore the worst of their behavior, and I think that sort of happens here in the third act. Bunuels friend is right. Hes right to freak out and hes right to throw a temper tantrum and he's right to end the movie. Bunuel has lost it. It is this really interesting portrait of an artist that has sacrificed every shred of integrity and decency in the name of his art and it feels like it is going to crescendo into something truly catastrophic and thenwell, I dunno. Bunuel says oops I went a little overboard there right haha good thing Im not as bad as that douchebag Dali and thats kind of it. Its his friend who dies. His friend is killed by the fascists and Bunuel lives happily ever after and that kind of sucks.

But, I guess, thats sort of how it happened. Sometimes life sucks and the person who is being decent dies and the one who tortures a donkey becomes beloved by an entire country. It is a biographical film focusing on a real event that uses real footage from the movie it is focusing on. I agree Bunuel is a bad person here, but he is also an important figure in Spain and in filmmaking, and to gloss over the bad things he did would almost be more offensive, to me. I thought this was a fascinating examination of a very flawed person, and the mix of real footage used through some very solid animation made this stand out amongst the slurry of animated films we were buried under. The bits of surrealism were fantastic and I just wish they leaned into that even more. Had Bunuel had more of a reckoning or had they really leaned into the surreal motifs, this wouldve made its way to my top tier. As it stands though, it falls a bit short but remains a very worthy watch.

Suprak List Update: I think some of the points raised here were fair and doing my write up made me think a bit more about them. If I was to rank these movies right now, Id drop this down to ten. Which still puts me as top outlier! Sadly my fellow art snobs ABANDONED ME on this one but I expect I shall get my revenge on them soon enough.