Looking through Luis Buñuel’s extensive filmography, one might be shocked to discover that he directed an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (under the Spanish title Abismos de pasión), which stands as one of the more unheralded films in the director’s long career. A long-gestating passion project for the esteemed filmmaker, going back to the earliest days of his career in the 1930s, the film is almost exactly what we’d imagine a literary adaptation helmed by Buñuel would be – a subversive, brooding film that honours the source material as much as it makes some considerable changes, with the director employing his own use of artistic licence to turn the novel into a fascinating account of social unease at a particular time in history. Transposing the story from the early 19th century in pastoral England, to the bustling towns of contemporary Mexico, the film is a creative glimpse into Brontë’s world, using many of her ideas as the foundation for a powerful, earnest exploration of passion, desire and betrayal, which is supported by a poignant approach to social commentary that we have often come to expect from Buñuel. It’s not the director at his most experimental, and in all regards, it is a relatively straightforward adaptation – but this certainly doesn’t preclude this version of Wuthering Heights from being any less than an impeccable, well-crafted literary drama that uses romance very carefully to tell a scorching story of two people falling in love, and feeling the burden of living up to not only their individual reputation, but that of their entire family, in a historical period where one was judged less on the quality of their soul or the extent of their deeds, but rather the specific place on the social hierarchy on which they fall.

Wuthering Heights functions as less of a direct adaptation of the source material, and more of a film intent on telling a very specific story that is drawn from the director’s own experiences living and working in Mexico and seeing the class differences, and using the central themes found in Brontë’s as a firm foundation on which to build the story. Even at his most deranged, Buñuel often endeavoured to tell stories that were socially charged and culturally resonant, so while his efforts to adapt the novel were not as faithful as one would expect, it is quintessentially the work of one of the finest social critics of the 20th century, an artist whose work always reflected a keen understanding of human behaviour. In this instance, he’s using the original text as a starting point to explore the forbidden love between a young, aristocratic woman and the man she loves, a former servant who works hard enough to elevate his social status, to the point where he is desired by women in every social stratum, but only wants the person who he originally could not have as a result of his previous status. This is where Buñuel takes the most inspiration from Brontë – but rather than limiting himself to the process of merely updating the text to meet the specific temporal and geographical parameters of his film, he instead ventures into his own creative vision as well, colliding with the source text in a way that produces an absolutely unforgettable film that may not be entirely faithful to the novel, relying on the use of some key themes and a few important moments in the narrative, to construct a deeply captivating story of social division at a time when it was at its peak, which should resonate with even the most modern-minded viewers, since many of these themes are still relevant today, one of the many interesting aspects of the director’s work.

While the novel by Brontë was very much an elegy to forbidden love and the aftermath that comes as a result of high society meddling, this version of Wuthering Heights focuses less on the love shared between the two main characters, and instead on what it represents. Alejandro (representing Heathcliff) is a man who has made his entire fortune on his own, while Catalina (representing Catherine Earnshaw), is a hedonistic young woman who doesn’t realize what she had in her grasp before it was gone, and now tries her best to regain what she previously took for granted – but rather than focusing on the machinations of their growing romance, the film looks instead at the circumstances surrounding them. Buñuel was certainly not a stranger to provocative representations of reality, and while Wuthering Heights may not have much to say that we haven’t seen done many times before (including from the director himself), his authorial voice carries this film forward and gives it a deeply moving sense of being drawn from experience. He plumbs the emotional depths of this fragmented relationship, giving the viewer unforgettable insights into the trials and tribulations of not only the two protagonists, but also the several other people who existed concurrently, residing at different places in the social hierarchy, and who had their own motives to try and work their way upwards – and while the romance at the core of the film is absolutely gorgeous, Wuthering Heights makes the most substantial difference when it is commenting on broader issues, which is all part and parcel of what we’d expect from Buñuel, even when he’s working within the confines of a beloved novel.

Wuthering Heights is not a major work, but it’s one that still stands as one of the most interesting versions of the renowned novel. Less of an adaptation, and more of an independent film that clearly demonstrates clear arenas of inspiration through the use of some fundamental themes and ideas (as well as keeping with the mysterious Gothic nature of the original text), Buñuel handcrafted an exceptionally fascinating glimpse into Mexican society, told through the lens of two starcrossed lovers. There are many moments in this film that are absolutely awe-inspiring, such as the climactic moments, where Alejandro and Catalina are momentarily reunited, despite the latter having previously died before her beloved could finally accept her love. Buñuel was both a gifted storyteller and resourceful visual artist, so it would make sense that his adaptation of one of the most cherished novels in literary history would be far from a by-the-numbers literary drama, and instead one brimming with artistic merit. It’s a small and intimate film, and produced during a period in the director’s career when he was making several films a year, which explains why this film is relatively short (running a mere 87 minutes, a far cry from the dense, complex Romanticist novel), as well as very simple – but what it lacks in outward extravagance it more than makes up for in thematic content, as well as a deeply compelling sense of humanity, which is all drawn together to form a remarkably refreshing reanalysis of the centuries-old text that has remained the gold-standard for literary romance – and through using these basic themes to support his own artistic vision, Buñuel proved that he could truly construct the most enchanting stories from some very unexpected sources of inspiration, with his version of a 19th Gothic romance turning into a profound, earnest exploration of Mexican society, and yet never feeling gauche or like a merely novelty, but a fully-realized film on its own merits, which should not be surprising considering how the director rarely, if ever, did anything that wasn’t absolutely essential in some way.