As shots of a meager town and its inhabitants flashed across the screen, I knewI recognized Land Without Bread - maybe I had seen this before in History of the Documentary. The title hadn't rang any sort of bell, but as soon as the voiceover started, I instantaneously recalled the film and started to remember small bits, as well as personal opinions I had developed after I had first viewed it. I admit, I sat back, thinking this was just basically review, and started other homework while listening to the audio with an occasional glance up. But it was IMPOSSIBLE - I couldn't hear the narrative and NOT look - I had been in awe of how meagerly (if you could even call it that) the Hurdanos lived the first time I saw the film, but even the second time around, I still couldn't understand how people could be willing to live in such circumstances. After five minutes, I gave up my other side work and watched the movie in its entirety. Much to my surprise, by the end of Land Without Bread I had very different feelings about the film than I had the first time around.
I found the voiceover to be this films strongest point - it was convincing, all knowing, and spoke to the audience with a tone not only asking for sympathy, but giving it as well. The dramatic music was a bit upbeat for the tone that the narrative and the shots were creating. The more I watched, the more I realized that the narrative was not created to depict what was going on in the shots - the shots were edited to depict what Bunuel wanted to convey through the narration.
The first time I watched this film, I remembered feeling incredibly bad for these people - they didn't seem to live at all, rather exist, in horrible, horrible conditions. This viewing, I felt much of the same - at first. Then I couldn't help but wonder if they wanted out of these conditions - how could people live like that for generations and generations? Why wouldn't they migrate elsewhere? Did they even want to be happy? The film depicts them as being a rather stupid people - it seems everything they did to survive really didn't further them, but kept them alive, thus they were investing in nothing but the present moment, preserving nothing for the future. The narration told of the Hurdanos living in an incredibly infertile land, so they'd rot leaves in their homes to put down on the soil - becoming sick in the process. It also told that when a venemous but non fatal snake would bite, they'd usually die due to them not being able to care for their wounds. I couldn't believe that after centuries of existance, it seemed as if they'd learned nothing. The film wasn't making me sympathize for them - I was actually becoming more and more bewildered/angry, and wondering exactly what the point is Bunuel was trying to get across. Was he simply up-playing a small, unknown, poverty stricken town to take jabs at the Spanish government? Were things really this bad, or just personal propaganda?
I'm curious to know what others thought of Land Without Bread. It is well done, I'm just not entirely sure what to believe as fact and what to understand as Bunuel's play on imagery/words.
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You are wise to consider the degree to which it is propoganda. For certain some scenes are doubtlessly staged. For instance you could wait a lifetime to film a mountain goat falling off a mountain.
Some of it is true. Las Hurdes was a very isolated area, tucked up into the mountains. The houses are authentic and typical, some are still there. To this day the whole of Extremadura is a bit of an unknown in Spain.
Lack of sanitation and clean reliable water was a feature of the rural parts of the region until after the end of the Franco regime.
Amongst today's villagers, those of the age of the children depicted; there are some, mostly women, who remain illiterate to this day.
The farming practicises depicted are probably authentic, similar still occurs, but I suspect that the most visually compelling were shown. It is unlikely that the populous went without fruit e.g. that there were no groves. I even think that some may have been in an early shot of an abandonned hermitage or friary.
Have another look at the film, but don't let the master direct your eye. Backgrounds, group shots, etc., are not easily faked.
Much has changed in the region but much still remains. I do not recall precisely what is in the film, but the family pig, chicken, and donkey can still be found, along with the use of the donkey plough, they can reach places no tractor can.
Today there is a metalled road linking those villages. Although I cannot speak specifically for Las Hurdes, the connection of some other villages to the road, water, and electricity, networks and the provision of sanitation dates approximately to the 1980s.
You could look into the social history of the region, it was literally the Wild West of Spain. Great wealth was brought back by the Conquistadores who were commonly Extremaduran bandits turned nobility. At the time of filming parts of rural Spain were more or less fuedal or beyond the reach of administration.
Regards
Alex
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