That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until -- "My God," says a second man, "I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn." At which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience... "Look, look!" recites the crowd. "A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer."
One of the greatest conflicts that art allows each one of us to explore is the inner conflicts that all real people feel. Bunuel allows us to see the pain of such conflicts in the seesawing between the two different Conchitas. But he also shows us the far greater and more terrible pain that exists when we are monolithically ourselves.
Works Cited
My Last Sigh. Minneapolis: U. Minnesota P. 2003.
Colina, Jose de la, and Tomas Perez Turrent, Paul Lenti (ed. And trans.). Objects of Desire, Conversations with Luis Bunuel. New York: Marsilio Publishers. 1992.
Edwards, Gwynne. Indecent Exposures: Bunuel, Saura, Erice and Almodovar by Gwynne Edwards. London: Marion Boyars P. 2000.
Eisenstein, S. And Richard Taylor (ed. And trans.) Selected Writings Vol. One: works 1922-1934. London: BFI. 1987.
Jones, Julie. The Picaro in Paris: the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and the Picaresque Tradition. Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 51. 1999.
Russell, Dominique. Bunuel: The Gag, the Auteur. Canadian Journal of Film Studies, Vol. 18, No. 2. 2009.
That Obscure Object of Desire.
William, Peter. The Films of Luis Bunuel: Subjectivity and Desire. Oxford: Oxford Hispanic Studies. 1995.
Image and Body: The Optical Alignment of Walter Benjamin and Luis Bunuel
Journal article by E.D. Yeats; Journal of European Studies, Vol. 23, 1993
