Él · reception & legacy
1953 · Luis Buñuel
How Él has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Dismissed and even laughed at when it premiered — its Cannes 1953 screening was a notorious flop — Él is now ranked among the crown jewels of Buñuel's Mexican period, the film devotees push on anyone who thinks his career only got serious back in Europe.
What's debated
Fans still argue over how to watch it: pitch-black comedy of machismo or straight psychological horror — and whether it deserves the 'proto-Vertigo' label cinephiles keep pinning on it.
Its footprint
Its afterlife runs through psychoanalysis as much as cinema: Jacques Lacan admired it as a startlingly accurate portrait of paranoia and used it in teaching — a fact Buñuel loved retelling. Cinephiles also can't stop noting how eerily it anticipates Vertigo, bell tower and all, five years early.
Where it stands
A cinephile deep cut turned canon climber — the standard answer to 'most underrated Buñuel' and a badge of honour among his Mexican-period champions.