The Woman Who Saved Buñuel in Spain and Brought Rock to the Desert

 

Silvia Pinal, the Mexican actress, became the muse of the most important director in the world during the 1960s: Luis Buñuel. Together they formed an artistic partnership that produced three monumental films.

Pinal put it very clearly: “I chose Buñuel, not the other way around.”

In 1961 came Viridiana. Buñuel and Pinal planted a powerful bomb in the middle of Franco’s dictatorship. The Last Supper scene confirmed what everyone feared. Buñuel managed to fool the censors during filming, but afterward they realized the offense. The Vatican called the film blasphemous. Franco, furious, ordered the original print destroyed. Pinal hid the film among her clothes and traveled to Mexico, saving the only existing copy of the movie.

Viridiana won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. It remains the only Spanish film ever to win that award. With that picture, Silvia Pinal became one of the few Mexican actresses to have starred in a Palme d’Or winning film. Pinal named one of her daughters Viridiana. Viridiana later died in an accident.

In Mexico, Pinal and Buñuel made The Exterminating Angel. Another brutal social critique by Buñuel, this time aimed at the upper bourgeoisie. Different from Los Olvidados, but just as sharp.  

Pinal couldn’t understand why Buñuel kept asking the actors to repeat sequences and movements over and over. Buñuel explained that that’s what human beings do all the time.

Their final collaboration was Simon of the Desert in 1964. Budget problems left the film at half its originally planned length. Buñuel had to get creative and improvise the ending. While scouting locations in Mexico City, he found a place where the rock band Los Sinners was playing, a group that already sounded ahead of its time. He became fascinated by their intense sound and used both the band and the venue for the film’s closing sequence. At the end, Los Sinners appear playing “Rebelde Radioactivo,” a garage rock track inspired by the Cold War. Silvia Pinal played the role of the devil. 

On drums in that band was Fito de la Parra. He started out hitting cardboard boxes. Over time he became one of the best drummers in the country. In 1967 he left Los Sinners and joined Canned Heat, one of the most emblematic bands of the decade. With them he took the stage at Woodstock in 1969. Fito de la Parra is one of the few Mexican musicians who ever played that festival.