5. Viridiana
Directed by the exiled director Luis Bunuel and produced by Gustavo Alatriste, Viridiana is some of those films that are sure to stir your spiritual belief. The movie has the themes of rape, incest, evil and hollowness of ideal religious beliefs at its base and believed to be Bunuel’s backlash against the government and Church. The story is about a young nun who is about to take her sacred vows, she is invited by her uncle who is mourning his wife’s death on the night of their marriage, her uncle is astonished at her astounding resemblance with his dead wife and even proposes to her, which she declines. He forces her into wearing his deceased wife’s wedding gown and spikes her drink with the help of his faithful servant taking her to his room where he attempts to rape her but stops in horror and humiliation. Later he tells her that he did not rape her and kills himself with a skip rope leaving all of his property and estate to Viridiana. The girl cancels her return and changes the house into a shelter for poor and devastated people including beggars, poor women and children. Soon afterwards her good deeds are rewarded by the rape attempt on her by the people living in the house; however, she is saved by her uncle’s illegitimate son. The movie has an infamous scene where all the people of the house are acting in the way of Da Vinci’s famous painting of the last supper in a comical manner. The film has believed to mock the Christian belief of goodness as it shows the difficulties faced by Viridiana in her quest of doing well to all; at the end Viridiana is shown in a more realistic light as she is now a changed woman playing cards with fellow residents. The movie was deemed controversial and banned on several grounds; of having shown an incest inclination of a man towards his niece, religious weakness in people apparent from their mocking of the last supper painting and showing of the irrational goodness of the young nun.
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