Simon & The Sacred Cenote: 16mm Selections from the Archive of The American Egypt

"Voyage to the Land of Speaking Blood" - part three

Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 8:00pm

Tickets: $15 General Admission / $13 VPES Members

Doors 7:30 P.M. / Screening begins 8:00 P.M.

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Voyage to the Land of Speaking Blood

A three-part series at the Velaslavasay Panorama exploring themes of tourism, documentary, surrealism & archaeology in Mexican cinema.

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Jesse Lerner returns to the Velaslavasay Panorama to present a collection of 16mm films from The American Egypt.

Our feature film is Simon of the Desert (1965), the last film Luis Buñuel made while exiled in Mexico. Other 16mm films include a 1950s homemade travelogue through Mexico made by Mr. Smith, the operator of a sugar plant in Denver, a 1960s military educational film on the expedition of the Sacred Cenote (a well of treasure in the Yucatan) and a behind-the-scenes trailer for Kings of the Sun, the 1963 film about a Mayan kingdom starring Yul Brynner, George Chakiris and Shirley Anne Field.

SIMON OF THE DESERT

Directed by Luis Buñuel. With Silvia Pinal, Claudio Brook, Enrique Álvarez Félixa
Mexico 1965, 16mm, b/w, 45 min. Spanish with English subtitles

Perched atop a pillar in the middle of the desert in eternal penance for six years, six months, and six days, Simon – inspired by 5th century Saint Simeon Stylites – seeks spiritual purification through spectacular means. Reluctantly doling out occasional miracles, prophesies, and words of muttered wisdom to his fickle followers, Simon’s encounters elicit a string of blasphemous comedy routines occasionally anticipating those of Monty Python. His faith is ritually tested by the devil who reappears in various feminine incarnations all portrayed by the beguiling Silvia Pinal - accounting for most of the matter-of-fact surrealist moments that would become signature late Buñuel. With as ascetic an aesthetic as Simon’s, the film is a richly compact allegory. The cynical tone – balancing somewhere between mockery and sympathy – is consummated by a whirlwind ending which is as incredulously shocking as it is completely appropriate.

Simon of the Desert is presented in partnership with the Luis Buñuel Film Institute

 

Luis Buñuel & Cast from Simon of the Desert © LBFI

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Jesse Lerner
Jesse Lerner is a documentary filmmaker, curator, and writer based in Los Angeles.  His short films Natives (1991, with Scott Sterling), Magnavoz (2006), and T.S.H. (2004), and the feature-length experimental documentaries Frontierland(1995, with Rubén Ortiz-Torres), Ruins (1999), The American Egypt (2001), Atomic Sublime (2010), and The Absent Stone (2013, with Sandra Rozental) have won numerous prizes at film festivals in the United States, Latin America, and Japan, and have has screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao, and the Sundance, Rotterdam, and Los Angeles Film Festivals. His books include The Maya of Modernism, F is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth’s Undoing (with Alex Juhasz), Ism Ism Ism (with Luciano Piazza), The Catherwood Project (with Leandro Katz), and The Shock of Modernity. 

Jesse Lerner es cineasta, escritor, y curador.   Sus cortometrajes Magnavoz (2006), T.S.H. (2004) y Nativos (1991, con Scott Sterling) y sus largometrajes La Piedra Ausente (2013, con Sandra Rozental), Atomic Sublime (2010), El Egipto Americano (2001), Ruinas (1999), y Fronterilandia (1995, con Rubén Ortiz-Torres)  han ganado premios es festivales en los Estados Unidos, América Latina y Japón, y se han presentado en el Museo de Arte Moderno de Nueva York, la Bienal de Sydney, y los festivales de cine de Sundance, Rotterdam y Los Angeles, entre otros.  La Cineteca Nacional de México y Anthology Film Archives de Nueva York han presentado muestras retrospectivas de sus documentales.  Como curador ha organizado exposiciones para el Robert Flaherty Seminar, el Centro Fotográfico Manuel Álvarez Bravo de Oaxaca, el Museo de Arte Latinoamericano en California, el Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes de México y los Museos Guggenheim de Nueva York y Bilbao.  Ha publicado diversos artículos sobre cine, foto y arte y libros como El impacto de la modernidad, The Maya of Modernism, The Catherwood Project y F is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth’s Undoing.  Actualmente da clases en el programa de Intercollegiate Media Studies de los Colegios de Claremont en California.

 

Images from the event!

Photography by Forest Casey

 

This edition of the "Voyage to the Land of Speaking Blood" series is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs and by the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.