But what about Luis Bunuel, the great Spanish director, who lived in Mexico City for decades after fleeing his home country under Franco? It was here, toiling in the Mexican film industry, that he made such superb works as Los Olvidados (1950) and Exterminating Angels (1962). Where was his house in those days? Wherever, it wasn’t in any of the tourist guides, which point to every residence, every studio, of Kahlo and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera.
A kind volunteer working for FICCO did some research and came up with an address. A bunch of us, including my wife and John Gianvito, piled into a taxi one afternoon to find the destination. We ended up on a most anonymous street in a most unnoticed middle-class neighborhood. There was a doorway on the street with the number of the house we were given, but a high fence around the yard. From what we could see above the fence, there was a handsome, several-storied domicile. Bunuel may have lived here in the 1950s, before returning from exile to Europe for his final glory years, the time of Belle de Jour (1966), Tristana (1970), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1973).
Who resides there now? We rang and rang the doorbell, hoping someone would be home and agree to give us a tour. Alas, though a dog barked inside, nobody came to greet us. But what was that piece of paper stuck in the door? We take a look at it, and gasped: a current electric bill, to Luis “Bunual.” Huh? Does the ghost of the long-long-deceased Bunuel, dead since 1983, occupy his old home? Surrealism is alive and creaking in Mexico City.
