Produced in 1958 in Mexico, Nazarín is inspired by the novel of the same title by Benito Pérez Galdós (1895). Nazarín is the title character, a young catholic priest who also goes by the name Padre Nazario. The movie follows fairly closely the structure of the Spanish picaresque novel, in which the narrative travels along following the protagonist who is often a bit of an outcast or of a lower class in society, through a serial set of adventures, each one forming a mini-story framed within a loosely-connected or non-existent overarching plot. Adhering to the typical picaresque structure, the hero (or anti-hero as he may be) is accompanied through his adventures by a sidekick, two in this case.
However, here the plot varies from the typical structure in that the sidekicks, rather than propelling the plot and the hero forward through the stories, are the source of many of his problems and setbacks. They do at times act as catalysts moving Nazario from one adventure to the next, but rather than helping the hero move all three of them in a positive direction and elevating their statuses/situations through his cunning and wit, they drag him down to their much lower level (which is saying something seeing as he had been living amongst the poor). It is common in that genre for the hero to be of a higher social status than his sidekicks, but usually both are of relatively low classes and the two fit together in an accepted hierarchy: the knight with his squire, the shepherd and the musician, etc. However in Nazarín, the sidekicks are completely inappropriate choices for this particular hero, a catholic priest, as they are two prostitutes.
Also differing from the picaresque structure is the outcome of each of Nazarín’s adventures; rather than being successful and satirical in his exploits, he is constantly failing and ending up more miserable, pitiful, pathetic and embroiled than before, but he stodgily carries on trying. In this way, he arguably forms a kind of 19th century Mexican Don Quixote, who, like Quixote, only hopes and strives to do good, be successful and adhere to the ways of his heros (in Quixote’s case, the knights of old, and in Nazarín’s, Jesus), but only manages to fail and have all his good intentions go awry. As in Don Quixote, the outcomes of the hero’s adventures provoke more pity than humor in the viewer as the hero becomes so pathetic one feels too bad to even laugh at his folly and misfortune. The bumbling hero who refuses to be deterred from his quest is at first comical, but quickly passes that stage to become pitiful.
However, keeping with picaresque tradition (and in contrast to Don Quixote), the ending is left open and ambiguous, leaving room for the story to continue and the hero to have a never-ending series of adventures. This ambiguity represents an element common throughout Buñuel’s work; even in his more “commercial” and “normal” films he manages to slip in some of his beloved surrealist imagery and ambiguity. For example, the same drum beats that appear at the end of L’Age d’Or also accompany the final scene of Nazarín, suggesting that the viewer draw some comparisons between the endings of the two films, the former being decidedly surrealist and the latter rather not.
The reason for Nazarín’s constant and continuing failure is most likely part of statement on the part of Buñuel. The film arguably questions three major elements: the catholic church, society, and Padre Nazario himself. Nazarín critiques the catholic church most clearly through the actions of Nazario and the consequences he receives from his superiors: the church holds that it is for the poor, in the service of the poor, but the priest who tries to live amongst said poor and give his last bit of food, money and shelter to those in need, is defrocked and cast out by the church. Clearly, this is Buñuel calling the church hypocritical and perhaps suggesting that they have strayed too far from their original intent: that catholicism should be the religion of the poor, and has become too mired down in the weight of their own hierarchical structure of power to be beneficial to the world. One might go so far as to suggest Buñuel meant quite simply that the church has outlived its purposefulness. This is not a far stretch as critiques of the catholic church or at the very least, the priests and monks that represent it, can be found in nearly, if not all of Buñuel’s films.
The critique of Padre Nazario comes in the form of two questions: man or saint, and saint of heretic? Or is he both? Nazario foolishly believes that the two women travel with him because they want to be saved, and when he realizes this is not the case, this comes as a surprise to him. This begs the question in the viewer’s mind: was he really just that naive, or was he buying into his own delusions? As the movie continues he transforms from priest to man, but does that mean he can’t still be a good person? As to the second question, Padre Nazario flirts with the line between rebel priest and heretic. He follows the laws and life of Jesus to the letter, but in doing so goes against the established order of his church. This contradiction brings forth the following: in order to be a good christian, which does one follow, the church, or the founder?
The final of the three main critiques is that of society. At the base of it all, why does a fundamentalist christian, a person who follows the life of Jesus to the letter, who lives his life as a saint would, fail so spectacularly both within the church and in life at large? The answer most simply put is, there is no room for saints in our society. I argue this critique is the most important of all because it encompasses the other two. The catholic church does not exist in a vacuum, nor does the individual. Both exist upon the greater stage of society, society is the backdrop against which everything else takes place and it influences everything. Buñuel argues, change society, and many of the other problems we see will solve themselves. Change the root and the tendrils that branch off from it will change as well. Poverty, racism, the uselessness of the church and religion, the failures of the individual, these are just symptoms, not the disease itself. The fact that society cannot currently accommodate an individual of the likes of Jesus himself tells us that society is sick.
Several scenes toward the end of Nazarín (the scene in the prison and the pineapple scene), suggest that due to the current situation we exist in, the good, the bad, none of it makes a difference. Nazario is dangerous and therefore made to fail because he questions the established order and makes people question their own actions, something with which they are not comfortable. Clearly, as much as society says it wants to eradicate poverty, it cannot exist without it, and if there’s anything that people consistently do, it’s defend the status quo. Buñuel clearly wanted to make a statement about these issues, but being so against fundamentalists of any kind that he was, he would stop short of suggesting any radical way to solve these issues, or, any way at all. Buñuel did not set out to solve the world’s problems with his work, rather, he set out to make people question it and themselves.
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