Directed by Salvador Simó
Written by Eligio R. Montero & Salvador Simó. Based on the graphic novel by Fermin Solis
Starring Jorge Usón, Fernando Ramos and Luis Enrique de Tomás
MPAA rating: Not Rated, but does feature three unsettling sequences of animal cruelty from Buñuel’s Las Hurdes
Running time: 1 hour and 20 minutes

by Ian Hrabe

In 1930, Luis Buñuel set out to make the follow-up to his landmark surrealist film L’Age D’Or (co-directed with Salvador Dali) not with another work of surrealism, but a documentary of the poverty-stricken people of the Las Hurdes region of Spain. Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles chronicles the production of Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan (Land Without Bread) and in the process attempts to reveal the inner workings of a cinematic genius early in his career. It isn’t entirely successful, but the film makes great use of the biopic formula that opts to use a slice of the subject's life to represent the whole rather than the typically ho-hum A-to-Z approach.