Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

Mexico (1946-1961) 207a man who's waiting patiently for a bus when another man arrivesand asks him for directions."Does this bus stop at Chapultepec?" he inquires."Yes," the first man replies.But the second continues to ask questions about the various busesand their destinations, until he finally gets to:"And the bus for San Angel?""Ah, no," the man answers, "not the bus for San Angel.""Well, then," the first says, pulling out a gun and shooting him,"here's for all the others!"(Even Breton would have found that an authentic surrealist act.)There's another story which I remember vividly because I read itjust after my arrival in Mexico. A man walks into number 39 on acertain street and asks for Senor Sanchez. The concierge replies thatthere is no Sanchez in his building, but that he might inquire atnumber 41. The man goes to number 41 and asks for Sanchez, butthe concierge there replies that Sanchez lives at number 39, and thatthe first concierge must have been mistaken. The man returns tonumber 39 and tells that concierge what number 4 I said, whereuponthe concierge asks him to wait a moment, goes into another room,comes back with a revolver, and shoots the visitor.What shocked me more than anything else about this story wasthe journalist's tone; the article was written as if the concierge's actwas perfectly appropriate. Even the headline agreed: "Lo mat4 parpregunton"Ñdea because he wanted to know too much. It remindsme of a mayor I once met who told me, "Cad domzngo tiem sumuertzto"~each Sunday has its little death- if weekly assassinationswere the most natural things in the world.One of the scenes in El do y la muerte evokes a ritual in Guerrero.Every once in a while the government launches a "depistolization"campaign. Then, once all the guns have been collected, everyonerushes out to buy new ones. In the movie, a man is murdered andhis family carries his corpse from house to house so that the deadman may "bid farewell" to all his friends and neighbors. At every