By John A. Riley

With his third film, Luis Buñuel set out to parody the vogue for exotic ethnographic travelogues while delivering bitterly satirical attacks on poverty and the supposed objectivity of ethnographic and anthropological observers. Buñuel read Maurice Legendre’s account of his experiences in Las Hurdes, Spain, and something about this fervent Catholic’s account of the remote, destitute region fired Buñuel’s creativity.