Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

men from Las Hurdas often went away, but invariably they returnedto their native land.)In the middle of this wasteland is the small paradise of LasBatuecas, eighteen small hermitages rising from the rocks and groupedaround a ruined church (which has since been restored). Once upona time, before Mendizabal's expulsion order, each hermit rang a bellat midnight as proof that he was awake and watching over the town.The best vegetables in the world grow in its little gardens; there's amill for olive oil, one for wheat, and even a fountain with mineralwater. While I was making the movie, the only people there werean old monk and his servant, but there were drawings of goats andbeehives on the walls of the caves. I almost bought Las Batuecas in1936 for the rock-bottom price of one hundred and fifty thousandpesetas. Everything had been arranged with the proprietor, who livedin Salamanca, even though he was already negotiating with a groupof nuns from the Sacred Heart; but whereas they wanted to pay onthe installment plan, I was offering hard cash. We were just aboutready to sign when the Civil War broke out and all such transactionssimply became irrelevant. Had I become a landowner and had theoutbreak of the war found me in Salamanca (which was one of thefirst cities to fall to the Fascists), I would certainly have been executed.(Ironically, Franco built roads and schools in an effort to infusenew life into this moribund community.) It wasn't until the 1960sthat I returned to Las Batuecas. The convent was occupied by theCarmelites, and the sign on the door read: "Traveler, if your conscienceis troubling you, knock and we shall open. No women."I was with Fernando Rey at the time, and he knocked~oratherrang the bell. An intercom replied, the door opened, and a specialistappeared. When we told him our problem, he gave us such judiciousadvice that I couldn't resist giving the line to one of the monks inThe Phantom ofLiberty. "If everyone prayed every day to Saint Joseph,"he said serenely, "everything would be fine."EARLY in 1934, I was married at the town hall of the twentietharrondissement in Paris. I forbade my wife's family to attend. Her-