Sightlines · reception

How The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz was received

1955 · Luis Buñuel · The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz on Sightlines

The arc

Dismissed for decades as just another job from Buñuel's 'commercial' Mexican period, it's since been reappraised as one of the peaks of those years — the film where the dry, absurdist black comedy of his late French masterpieces first snaps into focus.

What’s debated

The perennial cinephile fight it fuels: whether Mexican-period Buñuel is criminally underrated, with Archibaldo as Exhibit A that the 'minor' films are anything but.

Its footprint

The wax mannequin — an eerie double of star Miroslava — is the film's endlessly screenshotted image, a proto-Vertigo bit of uncanny that turns up constantly in Buñuel retrospectives and Letterboxd reviews.

Where it stands

A beloved deep cut — the 'underrated Buñuel' pick that cinephiles press on anyone who thinks his career skips from Un Chien Andalou to Belle de Jour.

Did you know? Star Miroslava died by suicide in March 1955, shortly after completing the film and before its Mexican premiere — lending an unshakeable eeriness to the scenes built around her wax likeness.

A Deleuzian reading of The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz →