Luis Bunuel's 1965 film Simon Of The Desert is a huge favourite of mine for a number of reasons, a mere eight of which I will now detail below:
1. I have come to consider Bunuel as the single greatest film director of all time.
2. This film is a superb example of his mature style, being beautifully staged and filmed, but without any fussiness or obtrusive 'artistic' interventions.
3. It's ostensibly the story of a 5th Century Syrian Saint who lived on top of a pillar for 39 years, but Bunuel makes it far more relatable and, no pun intended, down to earth. Simon is just trying to get on with stuff, but it's just one thing after another for the guy.
3. It is very funny, particularly in how petty and pathetic and powerless the Devil actually is (see also Bedazzled).
4. It doesn't have the 'logic' of a dream, but it does work in the same way as a dream, i.e. it makes sense as you are having it rather than when you later remember it. This may, of course, be the point of Surrealism in general.
5. Fanatical religiosity is intrinsically weird and disturbing, a mental disorder, so Bunuel doesn't have to labour the weirdness, he just shows us the basics.
6. Bunuel cuts only when necessary, and each shot is exactly the right length no matter how long or short it is.
7. The film is only 45 minutes long, which, again, is exactly how long it needs to be.
8. It ends in an extraordinary way*.
* The Devil (Silvia Pinal) transports Simon Stylites (Claudio Brook) six thousand miles and fifteen centuries into the future to a nightclub in contemporary New York. They smoke, sip beer and watch the kids lose their shit to a groovy band. The frenetic dance, according to the horned one, is called Radioactive Flesh.
Bored and out of his element, Simon wants to leave, but the Devil tells him he'll have to stick it out - he'll have to stick it out to the very end. Such is the lot of the Ascetic, I suppose.
