A review by uosdwisrdewoh
Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles by Fermín Solís

4.0

For someone who’s listened to the Pixies’s “Debaser” countless times, I was unacceptably ignorant of Luis Buñuel, who made those images of slicing up eyeballs that Frank Black howls about, that is until I read this little graphic novel, which serves as a fine introduction to Buñuel’s life and work.

In this book, Fermín Solís follows Luis Buñuel in the making of Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan in 1932. We watch along with Buñuel’s crew as the legendary filmmaker blends fiction and documentary in his film about a godforsaken corner of Spain where to call it hardscrabble would be generous. How do you portray such abject poverty without taking advantage of those you portray? Buñuel doesn’t trouble himself too much with these concerns—he’s too concerned with making a statement that shocks the conscience in line with his previous surreal work—but his crew certainly has to reckon with them.

For a book portraying a man so committed to the cause of Surrealism, it’s a well-told, naturalistic portrait of a moment in time when artistic movements could capture the imagination and inspire waves of scandal and condemnation, as Las Hurdes did in Spain, where it was banned. Only a few times does the narrative shift into dreamscapes, including at the opening, which led me to believe this would be the dominant storytelling framework. Fortunately it’s not, especially since Solis’s cartooning really shines in the quiet moments, like the extended scene of Buñuel and a friend traipsing around Paris searching for an open bar.

This took over a decade to be translated and published in English, years after it was even adapted into an animated feature. I’m glad Self-Made Hero finally published it. Everything I’ve sampled from them has been great; watch out for them, they’re quietly becoming a real presence in indie comics.