The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz

The film is based on the novel of the same title by Rodolfo Usigli – although the author himself hardly recognized his work in Buñuel’s adaptation. Perhaps because the director treated the book as an opportunity to revisit and reinterpret his earlier film Él. In The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz both the themes and narrative structure closely resemble the earlier drama, yet Buñuel approaches them in a comic tone, leading the story toward a completely different conclusion – almost a shameless happy ending. Since childhood Archibaldo has believed that a music box, a gift from his mother, allows him to kill anyone he dislikes without consequence. Buñuel himself noted that Francisco, the protagonist of Él, is innocent and moral, whereas Archibaldo is an aesthete and a criminal. Their fates echo the story of two heroines in the Marquis de Sade’s Justine, whose writings strongly influenced the young Buñuel’s worldview and artistic imagination.

Piotr Kobus

Luis Buñuel (1900–1983) – Spanish surrealist director and one of the greatest filmmakers in world cinema. Having studied in Madrid, he moved to Paris in 1925, where he made An Andalusian Dog and The Golden Age in collaboration with Salvador Dali. His later creative life was divided between Mexico (Los olvidados, Él), Spain (Viridiana, Tristana), and France (Diary of a Chambermaid, Belle de Jour). Faithfully dealing with subjects such as religion, sex, and death, he consistently attacked ossified conventions and exposed the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality.

16th New Horizons IFF Catalogue

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