Simon of the Desert (1965)

How sad is this?

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Simon of the Desert is a wonderful and tasteful depiction between good versus evil. I enjoyed this movie although it had it slow parts and was hard to sit through at the very beginning. The film starts off with Simon standing on a pillar after dedicating years of his life to praying for everyone sins a crowd has formed around him to move him to a new pillar to continue his dedication. Simon is very hard on his self and sometimes relents to physical torture to show his loyalty to god with hopes that he forgives the rest of the people. This movie then becomes comedic once one of Simon's miracles gives a thief his hands back. Once this person has hands again the first thing he does is smack one of his children and drags them out of the crowd formed around Simon. The director then showcases the devils mysterious ways by casting a young female as the Satan. She attempts to lure Simon off his pillar to join her in celebration of the devils life by exposing her breast to him. He refuses and she vanishes, but returns throughout the movie in different characters. Simon portrays himself as a loyal disciple of God, but judges everyone who comes to the pillar to feed him or ask for a miracle. I found Simon as the ultimate hypocrite. The film is full of suspense after Satan makes his first appearance. Mostly because Satan can appear in Simon's dreams and day dreaming at any time in the most mysterious ways. He enjoys sending beautiful nudes to see Simon to persuade him to the dark side. The movie then moves forward showing Simon and the female in a different period partaking in smoking, drinking and dancing. I felt the overall theme for this movie is atheism. It is obvious the director does not believe in God after watching this movie. I would recommend this film to anyone who loves to watch the conflicts between being Christian and atheist.

Luis Buñuel's 1965 film named Simon del Desiert is a strongly religious film that involves a man who preaches to God for over 39 years on the top of a column. Was the winner of the FIPRESCI Prize as well as the Special Jury Prize, and nominated for the Golden Lion award all in the Venice Film Festival. Tis film is about a very deeply religious man, named Simon, who wants to be closer to God, so he climbs on top of a column and preaches there. But the Devil spends her time trying to get him to stop and get him to go back down to earth and try to seduce him. She goes to him with many different disguises such as an old witch, or a young teenager, or many other different disguises including God himself. And he always retaliated and kept preaching, and at the end the devil takes him to the future at a club and the movie ends that way. This movie is a Dramatic comedy with history in it. The movie is filmed in black and white and the characters speak in Spanish. The movie's setting is in a desert somewhere that isn't specified at all. Buñuel uses this film to criticize the Catholic Church for what he views are hypocritical teachings and practices that are done by Catholics. Actually the entire film can be and will be considered a mockery of the Catholic Church and those who carelessly follow it teachings for no reason. This shouldn't be confused with him criticizing religion in general as Simon is presented as a virtuous man whose attempts at reparation seems to not be fully understood by those who follow him. This film is directed pretty well and for the most part has a clear message. This film overall was fairly decent and was bizarre mostly.

Simon of the Desert is a religious based movie illustrating the difficulty of living a holy life and the temptations of sin. Simon, a man in the 4th century, lives on top of a beam for about 35 years giving the example of a sinless life for all to follow. He becomes known as a saint and people from all over came to visit him and get blessed by him. God has blessed him to remain holy, but the devil has other plans. Simon can recognize when the devil tries to tempt him to sin. Once, the devil came as a vixen and tried to seduce Simon sexually. This was one of the more comical scenes in the film. The tone of the movie was rather solemn and serious, and when she came, she began to tempt him by taking her top off and being absolutely ridiculous and humorous. Most people do not imagine the devil as a sassy Latin girl, but this was the form he came in. The devil's many stunts did not sway Simon. At the end, he was in a club full of sensual dancing in the 1960's, and this still did not prompt Simon to sway from his beliefs. Bunuel, the director, did an excellent job of filming, although it was only a short 45 minutes. He filmed the movie in black and white. The screen shots were also filmed creatively and effectively. The camera angles were used to make Simon look more holy and glorified, while making the woman look more dirty and sinful. This film was a balance between serious moral issues and humor. I enjoyed it and thought it was craftily made.

When this film started I had no idea where it was going, but I became quickly sucked into its fascinating plot line. It is truly a unique film, and I almost didn't even know what to think of it. Extremely surreal in its subtle religious message, it held my attention for its sadly short time span. It comes across something of a parable to me. You have a man who insists on being extremely sacrificial for God, and then you have the devil who continually comes to tempt him. He is almost a Jesus figure. Then, of course, things get very surreal and mixed up and he is lost to a world that he cannot control. It's almost as though Luis Bunuel is saying no one can stay truly pure in a society that constantly bombards its public with sin. He was obviously rather pessimistic about the state of the 60's. But it's very ingenious how he does about this. Simon is up on a pedestal for the entire film. He seemingly can't be touched. But what he doesn't realize is that just because he places himself out of the reach of the devil doesn't mean that "she" can't simply follow him up there. He separates himself physically but it's not enough to separate him emotionally. Personally I have more hope for human kind and the power that god has over us, but I certainly must respect how this director can translate a message on film into a true artistic statement. An idea like that takes true guts to go about making. It's a film that was destined from the start to make no money and fade quickly from the public eye. But it is also a gem of a film that will someday hopefully be rediscovered for a man of genius. One willing to go against the norm.