It seems like something of a rite of passage for every film lover at one point or another to crave the opportunity to enter into the deranged and ingenious mind of Luis Buñuel and wander around for a while, in the hopes of understanding what it was that compelled him to make such strange and bewildering films. Even when making something relatively straightforward, there are overtures of surrealism and off-kilter qualities that keep it from being all that conventional. Many examples of more subdued but no less fascinating work came about during what is referred to has his Mexican period, in which he voyaged to the Americas to make a series of films based in and around Mexico, exploring their social and political milieux, and adding his own unique qualities to the proceedings. This is quite clear in The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (Spanish: Ensayo de un crimen), in which Buñuel makes his version of a crime drama, which is a darkly comical satire in which not a single crime is committed, or at least not intentionally, which leads to a series of misfortunes for the main character, who would like to fashion himself as a serial killer, but simply cannot kill anyone, although not for a lack of trying. Distinctly odd and always very captivating in the way we have come to expect from Buñuel (who seemingly struggled to even conceive of the idea of considering the act of following conventions, let alone allowing them to dictate his films), the film is a fascinating and frequently quite unsettling dark comedy with a lot of peculiar merits, very little of which is unearned or anything less than entirely welcome. The director invites us on a deranged journey, and only the foolish would decline, especially since we never know what is lurking around the corner in a Buñuel film, which is the precise reason he is so celebrated as a filmmaker, and someone whose work remains cutting-edge and unquestionably compelling, decades after their release. ‘

The message at the heart of The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz is quite clear, although it does take a short while for us to fully acclimate to what the director was intending to say with this material. As we would come to expect, Buñuel’s decision to make a film about a serial killer was decisively non-conventional and strayed from the status quo in more ways than one, which gives it such a distinct tone and allows it to be much more compelling than it would have been had he took a more traditional route. Throughout the film, it is asking a simple question: is a serial killer born, or is he created through circumstance? In the case of Archibaldo de la Cruz, the answer is very swiftly indicated as being both to some degree. Buñuel doesn’t offer a clear explanation as to whether he considers the serial killer gene innate or a product of one’s surroundings, but there are some fascinating points made about the perpetual debate between nature and nurture, which is notably not resolved in this film, but still bears very compelling results. The director dates to take an approach that focuses on the nature of murder from a very different perspective, asking whether it is the act of killing that makes one a murderer, or the impulse to end a life, even if nothing comes out of it. At first, the answer seems obvious, but as the film progresses, we see it is a lot more complex – and one of Buñuel’s great skills as a filmmaker was to centre his films around a concept that seems to have an obvious answer, but by the end of it have challenged the audience and their perspective enough that we begin to doubt our confidence in the specific belief with which we entered the film. Whether it is the desire to kill, or the act of doing so, that makes one a psychopath is certainly a subject that is not necessarily difficult to answer, but through some carefully curated ideas and a lot of fascinating commentaries that intend to stir controversy, Buñuel takes advantage of the ambiguities that exist between them as he creatively examines these fundamental questions distinctly and uniquely.

However, the audience is not entirely released from culpability when it comes to how this film expresses many of its ideas. A good film is one that reflects reality in some way, and one in which we can see ourselves, at least to a certain degree. Most of us would feel relieved when we realize that The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz is about a serial killer since very few of us can ever attest to such a lifestyle, whether literally or metaphorically. However, the reality is that this film is not exclusively about a serial killer (or rather someone who would like to imagine himself as one), but instead society as a whole, which is where we start to see more resonant content. The film takes place in a version of society driven by excess, which is not at all unfamiliar to any of us who have paid attention to the way in which the world works, in which social structure functions as the guiding factor in every aspect of our lives, and quite appropriately is viewed as the source of some immense conflict between the class system. The character of Archibaldo de la Cruz is a wealthy man who sees himself as an equal-opportunity psychopath – he will happily kill a member of the nobility just as fast as he will a member of the impoverished working class. However, his prey usually ends up being the most vulnerable, and the film is extremely aware of the ramifications of such a concept, which is precisely why Buñuel leans so heavily into these ideas. His intention is not to entertain (although his filmmaking is so engaging and captivating, they do tend to be quite enjoyable, even when they are extremely disturbing) but rather to unsettle and provoke, which is exactly what drives this film. He is using the idea of a hopelessly incompetent serial killer to evoke discussion around social decline and the wretched excess of the wealthy class and their efforts to prey on those they see as beneath them, using them as fuel for their hedonistic lifestyles, pawns to maintain their vapid, extravagant existence that is unfortunately driven by a feeling of superiority, which is all too familiar a concept, even from a contemporary perspective.

While his work is always skirting around the edges of controversy, and therefore the very definition of revolutionary, we can’t neglect the formal aspects of this film, since Buñuel was never a filmmaker who would go against the grain in terms of how he handles the material. Formally, there is a lot to admire about this film, which plays like a melodramatic romantic drama, infused with broad segments of dark comedy, which should not be a combination that works nearly as well as it does here, but yet again proves the director’s incredible prowess as a visual and narrative storyteller. It is not a film that contains the most extravagant level of production value, with the grit adding to the overall darkness that propels the film, but there is a level of detail in how Buñuel constructs the film that immediately captures our attention. The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz is also immensely helped by the presence of actors who knew how to temper their performances to match the off-kilter tone of the film – had any of them played it like a straight drama, it may have been too dour, and conversely, if they had fully embraced the wackiness, the film would lose its sophisticated tone. Instead, the perfect balance was struck between melodrama and darkly comical satire, which is present at absolutely every level of this film, which is as entertaining as it is wildly compelling and thought-provoking, which is a credit to the director’s extraordinary skill, even when doing something slightly more traditional. In fact, his decision to make The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz a more conventional piece in terms of the development of its ideas is a great decision, and one of the many terrific quirks that drive this film and make it so captivating, while never losing that spark of delightful perversion that usually would drive such a narrative.

A fascinating examination of psychopathy that never offers all the answers in the way we may expect, The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz goes to great lengths to examine a concept that is not necessarily unique on its own but is rendered as nothing short of revolutionary when put under Buñuel’s direction. Using the foundational concept of a serial killer who has the distinct quality of never having killed a single person (which is in itself a commentary on the wealthy individuals who gain their riches through nepotism – many of them being business owners who have not done a day of work in their lives), the film examines the social contradictions that guide the lives of ordinary people, as seen through the eyes of someone whose biggest frustration is his inability to commit the most heinous act of all, which situates this film right at the heart of an enormously complex social conundrum, which the director examines with detail and a darkly comical perspective that feels almost peculiar in how he handles some of the material. Buñuel’s intentions are clear – he is looking at the decline of human civilisation, which he views as being less of an explosion and more of a gradual deconstruction from within, where the very foundations that maintain our society are rotting from the inside, teetering dangerously close on collapsing entirely. He demonstrates this by focusing on the carnivalesque nature of society, the fact that nothing in this world makes sense and that it is driven by a class system designed to sew division more than it inspires ambition, which is as relevant today as it was in 1955, making The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz one of the most deeply sincere and frankly quite disturbing works of satire from this era. Directed with the aim of provoking a reaction, but still constructed beautifully, the film is a very effective social statement by a director who earned his place within the canon purely through his deranged depictions of the global culture, which is deconstructed so effectively throughout this challenging and off-beat film.