Two things: 1) I am not the audience for this movie: I don't like musicals in general, I don't recognize the popular songs featured, and I honestly prefer Bunuel's darker movies; 2) however, this movie was still very spectacular (in the truest definition of the word) and is a real testament to Bunuel's gift of visual storytelling.
Basically, the idea here is that a couple of prison escapees (what they did is unclear, but I'm pretty sure they were just taken in for vagrancy) get a job at a oil speculation site just before a series of murders begins to unveil a conspiracy set against the owner. The owner's sister appears, capturing the heart of one of the leads, and now it's a process of figuring out whodunnit, comment on the political motivation (with oil there's always a political commentary, even back when), get the girl despite the usual misunderstandings, and, yes, sing.
Many people don't recognize that Bunuel also had the ability to be a popular entertainer. "A Woman without Love" is a testament to that fact, as well as this movie. For what it's worth, this movie really wouldn't feel all that out of place as a studio musical classic, only it just happened to be Spanish. What I liked best is that all of the music is diegetic: the sound and singing originate within the narrative and the story doesn't necessarily stop just to have people sing. The songs fit in as realistically as possible in the world, covering up for the sound of prison escape, setting a moment of hopeful joy, performances in the background... some of the songs are interrupted by the audience, some of them are stopped because they're practice, and a lot of them feature some dazzling uses of realism in environment and choreography. So for what it's worth, Bunuel scored big time on that.
--PolarisDiB
Basically, the idea here is that a couple of prison escapees (what they did is unclear, but I'm pretty sure they were just taken in for vagrancy) get a job at a oil speculation site just before a series of murders begins to unveil a conspiracy set against the owner. The owner's sister appears, capturing the heart of one of the leads, and now it's a process of figuring out whodunnit, comment on the political motivation (with oil there's always a political commentary, even back when), get the girl despite the usual misunderstandings, and, yes, sing.
Many people don't recognize that Bunuel also had the ability to be a popular entertainer. "A Woman without Love" is a testament to that fact, as well as this movie. For what it's worth, this movie really wouldn't feel all that out of place as a studio musical classic, only it just happened to be Spanish. What I liked best is that all of the music is diegetic: the sound and singing originate within the narrative and the story doesn't necessarily stop just to have people sing. The songs fit in as realistically as possible in the world, covering up for the sound of prison escape, setting a moment of hopeful joy, performances in the background... some of the songs are interrupted by the audience, some of them are stopped because they're practice, and a lot of them feature some dazzling uses of realism in environment and choreography. So for what it's worth, Bunuel scored big time on that.
--PolarisDiB