Perfect films are something of a quirk; they can be perfect while arousing no grand sympathies or emotions. I know of a few perfect films I would never consider 'great' films, and I know quite a lot of great films that are resoundingly imperfect or imbalanced.
Ensayo de un crimen, as it is known in spanish, or in english, The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz, is a perfect film. It has no pretension of being a great film: but that is who Bunuel is. He is a master because he never prefigures the duration of a film's significance; he is a workhorse because his sole concern with making films is the chance to make them. A few florid jolts of laughter suffice to put an absurd scenario into play. The excitement in making a film for him is the same excitement a drinker feels for a fresh shot of fine bourbon or scotch: because it's the next one. But Bunuel sits apart from other directors equally prolific because his wit far exceeds their conceits: the glory of Bunuel is the impeccability of his taste. It is impossible for him to make a worthless film; his films promise at any moment a scene of insight so disarming or humor so corrosive that often their plots are set up to introduce a single poignant comment on society, the human condition, and their incongruities. The characters are sacrificed, sans ceremony, to the mirth of the audience.
But Ensayo de un crimen is perfect because its script is perfect: the film exists, like Hitchcock's films, for reason of its story. I do not know of a more perfect opening for a film than this one. The protagonist, Archibaldo de la Cruz, opens the offscreen narration for us, as we gaze at hands flipping the pages of a photo book of the Mexican Revolution. Archibaldo tells us of his early childhood in the midst of the Revolution, that he grew up privileged in a stately home, the only child of a wealthy family. The scene shows us the home, and inside the home, an electric train set inside young Archibaldo's room, as it speeds along. Archibaldo, here a boy of about 10, is tended to by a comely young governess, who disapproves of his spoiled nature. Archibaldo's mother comes in and promises to give the boy a porcelain music box to play with if he behaves well (there are subtle hints that the boy -- and the man who grows up later -- is effeminate). The governess is obliged by the boy's mother to entertain the boy with the tale of the music box. The governess explains that the box has magical powers and has the power to kill anyone the person who winds it up thinks of at the moment. Outside the window noises of gunshots are heard, and we learn that revolutionary rebels are invading the peaceful town and seeking to pillage it. The governess, startled by the noise, stops her tale and goes to look out the window. The boy, thrilled by the story and the prospect of its being true, goes over to the music box and winds it, and immediately casts his eye on the governess, intending that she should die. Suddenly a stray bullet hits her through the window, and she falls dead. The excited boy walks over and, much to his morbid delight, sees her neck bloodied, and her smooth black-stockinged legs exposed. The image, both perverse and erotic, stays fixed in the boy's mind, and he becomes convinced that the music box holds power that he alone possesses.
The scene then switches to the image of another lovely woman's face, this time a nun, and we quickly ascertain that Archibaldo -- now grown -- was not speaking to us (as narrator) but to the nun (in character), and we see him stretched on a hospital bed, describing the dark urge he's held since childhood to murder. The nun, astounded by the story, decides to cut her time with him short, and goes off to bring his medicine. While she's gone, Archibaldo takes out a case of pocket knives from the bedside drawer, selects one, then sneaks over to the door in surprise for the nun. When the nun comes in, he brandishes the knife and coolly professes that he will kill her, whereupon she rushes out, only to find an accidental death by falling down an open elevator shaft. The scene then switches over a third time to a police headquarters, where the chief of police and a resident doctor discuss the strange matter of the nun's death at the sanatorium. The doctor leaves after answering questions on the character and sanity of the patient (he reveals that Archibaldo was a patient at the sanatorium because he felt depressed by the recent death of his wife), and the chief of police requests that Archibaldo, waiting for an interrogation, walk in. Archibaldo, cool as ever, brazenly declares that not only is he the nun's murderer, but he's killed many more before her. The incredulous chief, who can't take the dandyish man seriously, asks Archibaldo to explain what he means. Thereupon the film goes back in time again, this time entering the main plotline, consisting of the the events that lead up to Archibaldo's marriage and his wife's death.
The scenarios that follow are just as ingenious as the thrice-enfolded setup. That Archibaldo is a failed would-be murderer from whom fate robs the fantasy of its perverse eros is the soul of the joke at play, the humor of which is never lost on the great prankster himself, Bunuel.
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