STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN (MEXICAN BUS TRIP)

Mexico, 1951, 85 minutes, Black and white.
Lilia Prado.
Directed by Luis Bunuel.

Stairway to Heaven is a Bunuel film from the early '50s, his prolific Mexican period which included such films as Los Olvidados, his version of Wuthering Heights, El, El Bruto. This film is different, it has many comic touches.

The film shows provincial Mexico around 1950, life in a village, bus travel, the range of people who travel by bus - women giving birth, men going to lawyers in far towns to fix wills, a Congress candidate, a young woman who wants to pursue every eligible male...

The film gives a portrait of these people, their lives, their rituals, relationships.

1. The work of Luis Bunuel? His Mexican films? The lighter touch?

2. Black and white photography, studio work, locations? Musical score?

3. 1950, provincial Mexico, the towns, the people, the detail of their lives, rituals?

4. The title, the journey over the mountain? Real, symbolic?

5. The introduction to the story with its fairytale touch? The marriage, the traditions, the church, the island and the honeymoon? The reality of the married couple being pursued, the brothers bringing them back to the town?

6. The family, the jealous brothers and their greed? Their mother dying? Oliverio as his mother's favourite? Coming back, the dividing up of the property? The plan, his going to the town to alter the bequests? The brothers and their schemes, arguing about who would inherit what, throwing the dice, the false document, wanting their mother to sign it?

7. The bus trip: Oliverio and his mission, always in a hurry, the attractive girl, her pursuit of him, going swimming, his dream nightmare and her place, his wife? The sexual encounter on the mountain (and his remembering this when he arrives too late for his mother)? His driving the bus, going to the lawyer, the discussion about the debt owed? His return home? With his wife? Her devotion, her mother-in-law relying on her? His mother's death? Reconciliation with his wife - and the trump card of his document with his mother's thumbprint which he had put on it? Ironic ending?

8. The trip with the bus driver and his style, friendly? The old bus, the various events on the way, the range of passengers, the mountain and the fog, the birth of the child, getting stuck in the river and the cattle getting the bus out? The driver and his mother's birthday party, the celebration? The return home and the funeral of the child? Time not meaning anything, everybody stopping and participating in the rituals?

9. The Congress candidate, taking himself seriously, his speech and toast to mothers, meeting his opponent in the city and the people stoning him, the reconciliation and the handshake with his opponent?

10. The aristocratic man, the young girl, wanting to be urbane and with good manners?

11. The man from Spain and his catalogue of hens and chickens?

12. The girl, her attractiveness, with Oliverio, coming on to him, the bus driver? Her place in Oliverio's dreams? The sexual encounter? Her staying in the city - and pursuit of the Congress candidate?

13. The ordinary people, their life and vitality, verve in their celebrations?

14. The mother's death, Oliverio getting the thumb mark - and the ironic happy ending?