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Simon of the Desert
Simon of the Desert
1965
Drama
43m
Simon, a deeply religious man living in the 5th century, wishes to be nearer to God, so he lives on top of a column, where he fights a struggle against the temptations offered to him by Satan.
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Simon of the Desert
1965
Drama
43m
Your probable score
Avg Percentile 70.49% from 757 total ratings
Ratings & Reviews
(757)
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Rated 07 Dec 2008
98
98th
SOTD is truncated, incomplete, and barely known - but it is the one Bunuel film I continually return to. This has something genuine to say about the falseness of altruism, the relationship between Man and God, and the death of the Enchanted Age. Or I'm reading too much into it. God bless Bunuel.
Rated 07 Dec 2008
Rated 29 Aug 2008
99
97th
One of Buñuel's best movies. Everything about bunuel's Cinema, you can find in those bright 43 minutes!
Rated 29 Aug 2008
Rated 18 Feb 2009
90
85th
I liked this one a lot. It's brief, captivating, heavily allegorical without feeling like it's allegory first and story second, and also quite funny. The ending comes out of nowhere but fits perfectly. Another thing I like about it is that while it clearly satirizes Christianity to some extent, it's also something of a blank slate for you to write your own religious interpretation onto. You could distill the film down to an interpretation that both Christians and non-Christians can agree on.
Rated 18 Feb 2009
Rated 20 Mar 2015
50
29th
PSI: 93, Average Kumpel Tier: 9.61 ... Bad Kumpels! Bad! Go stand in the corner!
Rated 20 Mar 2015
Rated 09 Nov 2008
9
94th
One of Bunuel's best - and greatly underappreciated. Simultaneously attacking and displaying a strange sense of affection for religion, piousness and (overly extreme) selfsacrifice. Oh yeah. And the final dance-off (!) is one of cinema's finest.
Rated 09 Nov 2008
Rated 14 Aug 2007
86
96th
This may be a very unusual case where severe budgetary problems encountered in the course of production actually resulted in a better movie. Superb ending, of course. To me, it seems that Denis's BEAU TRAVAIL is in fact, in an abstracted and uncanny way, a remake of this movie.
Rated 14 Aug 2007
Rated 04 Aug 2010
3
80th
Deliciously subversive work. I can't decide whether it's a shame we didn't get the feature-length version, or whether it's perfect as it is.
Rated 04 Aug 2010
Rated 09 Feb 2007
89
92nd
A hilarious and effective work of religious satire. Also a pleasure to look at, it's loaded with fabulous imagery. One wonders what Bunuel would have done with it if he'd had the money to film the whole thing, but it works perfectly well as a short.
Rated 09 Feb 2007
Rated 26 Jul 2009
8
85th
It's a flip flop of a film by Buñuel, this piece can be taken as a satire on religion or as a pro-religious film. Silvia Pinal plays a morbid yet seductive version of Satan.
Rated 26 Jul 2009
Rated 15 May 2016
10
96th
The devil is much more in tune with the future than a bearded ascetic ever could be. Get over yourself, Simon. HAIL SATAN.
Rated 15 May 2016
Rated 02 Mar 2008
56
29th
# 872
Rated 02 Mar 2008
Rated 24 Dec 2009
94
93rd
A slight film, but a memorable one.
Rated 24 Dec 2009
Rated 25 Nov 2013
4
74th
An imaginative and funny satire, brief but packed with deft visuals, metaphors, and gags. I especially love the use of anachronism. Silvia Pinal is the film's greatest charm, a charismatic embodiment of Satan as a beautiful temptress.
Rated 25 Nov 2013
Rated 30 Nov 2010
40
97th
"Simon of the Desert's little Bible stories are twisted evocations of the dumbing down of faith by postmodern Christian anxieties and hang-ups." - Ed Gonzalez
Rated 30 Nov 2010
Rated 21 May 2009
80
94th
A bedtime story for nonbelievers. With the flat, desolate setting and the up-tilted views of the aloof holy man, the movie is composed of about three-fourths sky; and against this luminous backdrop Buñuel's mixed-nuts characters stand out like the over-defined figures in a Sunday School play -- priests, pilgrims, the poor, the infirm, the malformed, and, in various disguises, the ubiquitous Devil.
Rated 21 May 2009
Rated 18 Nov 2016
31
27th
Bunuel at his silliest, which is saying something. It somehow managed to put me to sleep despite being only 45 minutes long.
Rated 18 Nov 2016
Rated 18 Aug 2020
90
87th
Buñuel is not so much critical of Brook's dedication as skeptical that it has any role in the real world. Only Buñuel and Satan seem to appreciate him.
Rated 18 Aug 2020
Rated 27 May 2016
25
28th
Buñuel is always very hit-or-miss for me, so my surprise was not to've seen yet another Buñuel film that didn't work for me, but rather that "Simón" was that film.
Rated 27 May 2016
Rated 17 Feb 2014
75
72nd
Both short and sweet. As it is to be expected due to its fragmented nature and limited runtime, it lacks a great pay-off but what IS here is pretty savory: a sharp parody of asceticism
and religion and one of Buñuel's funniest and most artfully shot films. The ending was a treat.
Rated 17 Feb 2014
Rated 17 Jul 2012
41
15th
I've always found Buñuel inscrutable, and certainly here, I think a lot of the symbolism went over my head. I still found this an interesting satire.
Rated 17 Jul 2012
Rated 01 Sep 2009
80
52nd
Though technically unfinished, it still feels complete. The final sequence is a brilliant solution to the budget constraints, and makes it that much more fascinating. Love that Bunuel humor.
Rated 01 Sep 2009
Rated 05 Aug 2010
4
55th
There's nothing particularly wrong here, it just feels like an idea that barely gets off the ground.
Rated 05 Aug 2010
Rated 27 Aug 2023
5
14th
Buñuel continues his critique of religious devotion, albeit without a clear resolution. A full feature might have fleshed out a message, but as it is this is only a collection of ideas and images that at best suggest a world better served by baseless pleasures.
Rated 27 Aug 2023
Rated 16 Dec 2007
84
77th
A funny and surreal skewering of organized religion.
Rated 16 Dec 2007
Rated 05 Sep 2011
85
96th
In a way I'm happy that the funding fell through and Bunuel had to abbreviate the film; I don't see how he could have improved upon it. It's about as fun and accessible as surrealism can get. Funny as hell, too.
Rated 05 Sep 2011
Rated 02 Aug 2013
80
37th
I know some of this went right by me, but I still appreciate it quite a bit. It's pretty funny, but the serio-comic tone can make the humor difficult to notice. I don't know if this would be better if it was longer. Part of the beauty of it is how disjointed it feels. The ending is unbelievably cool. I don't even know what it means but I definitely dig it.
Rated 02 Aug 2013
Rated 03 Aug 2015
80
79th
Generally I like the way Bunuel approaches cinema, he has a real potential to create the awkward, alienated and the dreamlike, but so long as he can put a distance to the surrealism. Because surrealism is a too rudimentary and a too excited art movement to grasp the grandiose realities of life, usually it's just a caricature. But despite its overt surrealism, with its end scene, this movie is an elegant iconoclast which could easily be Nietzsche's favorite movie.
Rated 03 Aug 2015
Rated 06 May 2011
58
28th
I saw this a long time ago, but I didn't know the name of it. It showed up as a recommended film when I visited Criticker today. I never thought I would hear of it again.
Rated 06 May 2011
Rated 19 Dec 2008
53
6th
946
Rated 19 Dec 2008
Rated 21 May 2008
60
47th
Interesting movie. It's tempting to call it a good slam on religion until you realize that it could also easily be interpreted as a PRO-religion film. Arts and Crafts students can spin that all they want about how you're supposed to know Bunuel etc. etc., but I'd argue that kind of ambiguity is a failure to communicate
Rated 21 May 2008
Rated 26 Jul 2010
69
65th
Interesting, but thanks to the abrupt ending, this felt more like food for thought than a film with one message. Not that movies must have messages, but considering how much of this one is spent on critiquing the Catholic church, the ending felt rather like "and those guys too."
Rated 26 Jul 2010
Rated 21 Feb 2019
90
77th
90.00
Rated 21 Feb 2019
Rated 10 Feb 2013
79
81st
Kendini ibadete adayan adam, inziva, sütun, çöl, rahipler, seytan, kadin kiliginda seytan, uçak, teknoloji seytanidir gibi bir önermesi var. (Çölde bir sütunun üstünde kendini ibadete adiyan Simon'un ayagini kaydirmak için yanina şeytan gelip gitmektedir.)
Rated 10 Feb 2013
Rated 15 Jul 2015
72
77th
Focuses too much on low-hanging fruit, thereby giving the whole a somewhat petulant vibe.
Rated 15 Jul 2015
Rated 09 Mar 2018
82
70th
Quanto mais o Buñuel fala de religião, mais engraçado o filme fica. DVD Versátil o Cinema de Luis Buñuel
Rated 09 Mar 2018
Rated 18 Jun 2009
100
99th
11 Nisan 09, 16:00. atlas sinemasi. 28. ist. film fest. & en son 27.ist. film fest'te 'el topo'yu izlerken yasadigim, icimdeki sinema coskusunu tekrardan aciga cikaran bir film. boyle filmleri ancak yilda, iki yilda bir izleriz. beyazperde'de izleme sansini yakaladigim icin cok mutluyum. Simon 2010'lara gelse de ayni seyle karsilasacakti. *Bunuel'in su ana kadar izledigim en iyi filmi. favorim. http://sineofrenik.blogspot.com/2009/04/28-uluslararas-istanbul-film-festivali_5495.html
Rated 18 Jun 2009
Rated 22 Aug 2012
86
88th
Ending!
Rated 22 Aug 2012
Rated 13 Feb 2012
79
69th
I enjoy the details that give this unfinished work potential but the incompleteness surrenders it to a modest rating.
Rated 13 Feb 2012
Rated 16 Jan 2010
52
4th
967
Rated 16 Jan 2010
Rated 25 Sep 2022
75
57th
An interesting, beautiful, thought provoking film that I liked a lot more than I like most Bunuels. I'm not sure I quite got the ending. As usual, Bunuel is pissing off the Church. The shots of Simon on his column are great and it's surprisingly funny at times. I understand this was meant to be a full feature but there was a production issue or a lack of funding or something, but I think it works very well at this length.
Rated 25 Sep 2022
Rated 17 Jul 2010
60
26th
Bunuel films the action beautifully, adds a number of creative touches--esp. to Simon's encounters with the Devil--and pretty much plays it straight right up until the ultra-surrealist ending. Simon is a three dimensional character whose fall is handled in too straightforward a fashion. Bunuel's lack of imagination with regard to religious characters is more striking than ever here. While he is profoundly aware of the life of faith, he seems only able to imagine it ending in despair or failure.
Rated 17 Jul 2010
Rated 05 Mar 2009
100
91st
Bunuel's anarchic humor was never more pungent, his visual style more subtly formal, his gibes at holiness and purity more telling.
Rated 05 Mar 2009
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