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Death in the Garden
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Wikipedia article
'La mort en ce jardin' ("'Death in the Garden'") is a 1956 adventure film by director Luis Buuel, based on a novel by Jos-Andr Lacour, that stars Simone Signoret, Charles Vanel and Michel Piccoli, with additional dialogue by Raymond Queneau. Set in an unidentified South American country, it recounts the bloody suppression by the corrupt governing regime of an insurrection by illegal diamond miners, after which five disparate fugitives take to the jungle in search of safety.
Plot
When a settlement of illegal diamond miners is broken up by soldiers, in revenge they attack and burn down the army headquarters in the nearest town. Next day, when reinforcements arrive, most of the surviving miners are rounded up to be shot. On a river boat, five people escape the carnage: a pacifist miner, his deaf-mute daughter, the local madame he wants to marry, a Catholic priest, and a wanted adventurer. When pursued by the army, they take to the jungle. There, the struggle for survival starts eroding their identities and in most cases their will to live. The adventurer becomes the resourceful leader, while the miner goes out of his mind and kills both the madame and the priest. After killing the miner, only the adventurer and the girl are left to find freedom together.
Cast
* Simone Signoret - Djin, the madame
* Charles Vanel - Castin, the miner
* Georges Marchal - Shark, the adventurer
* Michel Piccoli - Father Lizardi, the priest
* Michle Girardon - Mara Castin, the deaf-mute
* Tito Junco - Chenko
* Ral Ramrez - lvaro (as Raul Ramirez)
* Luis Aceves Castaeda - Alberto (as Luis-Aceves Castaeda)
* Jorge Martnez de Hoyos - Captain Ferrero (as Jorge Martinez de Hoyos)
* Alberto Pedret - Second Lieutenant Jimnez
* Marc Lambert - Miner
* Stefani - Miner
Analysis
'Death in the Garden' proposes a sort of psychological mirror-image of Franco's Spain from which Buuel exiled himself, with rebellions and oppressors galore.
References
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