7:00 p.m.	Secret Formula Rubén Gámez (Mexico, 1965)

(La fórmula secreta). This poetic essay in a surrealistic mode is seemingly inspired by Luis Buñuel’s L'age d'or, but its images reveal how truly surrealistic the Mexican aesthetic is. Non-narrative vignettes set disconcertingly to classical music show that a mythic obsession with death and violence is rooted in the poverty of life “in this stupefying benumbed land. Everyone here is dead with no place to drop over.” The words are those of Juan Rulfo, but don’t be surprised when the narrator begins to speak backwards. Extraordinarily beautiful compositions belie their macabre content, from the slaughter of a steer to the slyly humorous lassoing of a businessman. The underlying theme is a probe of the Mexican’s “lack of identity with himself”; we won’t say what the “secret formula” refers to, except to mention that it’s the real thing.

—Judy Bloch

• Written, Photographed by Gámez, based on writings of Juan Rulfo. Read by Jaime Sabines. With Pilar Islas, José Castillo, José Tirado, Pablo Balderas. (45 mins, In Spanish with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm, From Oberhausen International Short Film Festival)

Followed by:
L’age d’or
Luis Buñuel (France, 1930)

PFA Collection Print

(The Golden Age). The film perhaps most identified with the Surrealist movement, L'age d'or was described on its release as a “desperate pursuit of a wonderful love across the ferocious and cunning snares of social life” (Jean-Paul Dreyfus). Luis Buñuel himself reflected, “L'age d'or is the only film in my career conceived and created in a state of euphoria and enthusiasm, of vertigo for overthrowing things and deliberate seeking of scandal, dedicated to attacking the representatives of ‘order’ and ridiculing their ‘eternal’ principles. The period called for such a spirit.”

• Written by Buñuel, Salvador Dali. Photographed by Albert Dubergen. With Gaston Modot, Lya Lys, Max Ernst, Pierre Prévert. (63 mins, In French with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm, PFA Collection)

• (Total running time: 108 mins)