Barry Forshaw

El, Luis Buñuel, director/Radiance

A key work of his Mexican period, Buñuel’s sardonic and transgressive drama has pre-echoes of his later films with its dark humour and surrealist underpinnings; it’s a little-seen curio from a giant of international cinema. In recent years, the more difficult-to-see of Buñuel’s films have been making their way onto the silver disc medium and this chance to revisit one of the cinema’s great masters is much to be applauded. As the appearance of El attests, it’s not just the better-known classics such as Viridiana and The Exterminating Angel which deserve our attention. This new transfer from Radiance maintains the company’s impeccably high standards.