(France-Mexico, 1956) 97 min color DIR: Luis Buñuel. PROD: Óscar Dancigers, David Mage. SCR: Luis Alcoriza, Luis Buñuel, Gabriel Arout. DOP: Jorge Stahl Jr. CAST: Simone Signoret, Charles Vanel, Georges Marchal, Michel Piccoli, Michèle Girardon. (Cinédis)
Luis Buñuel was hired for a trio of French co-productions, centering on Fascism and revolution. Of these, Cela S’appelle Aurore and La fievre monte a El Pao remain obscure, although La mort en ce jardin did get a North American release. The latter film has several release titles in English: Death in the Garden (its literal translation), Evil Eden, and Diamond Hunters. All of these understandably but inaccurately hint some steamy melodrama and/or action-adventure movie, when really it is neither.
In the opening, set in an unnamed country, a ragtag band of prospectors is rudely informed that the new Fascist government is to take a percentage of their earnings. Out of protest, the intrepid Chark (Georges Marchal) becomes an activist. However, a night with a prostitute, Gin (the legendary Simone Signoret), turns out to be his downfall, as she betrays him to the government over the diamonds he conceals on his person. He escapes prison by blowing it up, and then leads a group of exiles through the jungle to supposed freedom, with the Fascist soldiers in pursuit.
The eclectic group of characters are a typically Buñuelian ensemble of political idealist, prostitute and -guess- priest! What is most intriguing about this vehicle is that it has to do less with people escaping political strife than with people escaping their identities. In the film’s most interesting sequence, the fugitives find a crashed plane, and instead revert to their capitalist selves, as suddenly they all put material wealth and petty squabbles before their cause, and ultimately destroy one another. As interesting as the ideas are, given some good production values and superb colour cinematography by Jorge Stahl Jr., the characterizations are rather muddled. sadly Death in the Garden is a good film which could have been great. This film was released to DVD thanks to Microcinema International.