Without nudity or profanity, and but one instance of offscreen violence, Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana managed to be denounced by the Vatican and banned in Spain, where Buñuel had returned to make the film after two decades in exile. The film also won the 1961 Palme d’or and was the turning point in the director’s career. Viridiana is on her way to being a nun when her estranged rich uncle derails her plans. Buñuel unreservedly skewers Viridiana’s religious piety and sexual repression, but that is but one of several layers of social observation. The film is full of visual references, ranging from the openly comic (Viridiana’s attempt to milk a cow) to more subtle cues about Spanish class, culture, and politics (dogs being made to run under carts, for example). There were many metaphors I failed to fully comprehend, and certainly many that I missed. 
The overarching statement seems to be that every character – Viridiana, her uncle, the servants, the uncle’s estranged son, and the vagrants Viridiana shelters – act only upon the expectation of something in return. When the vagrants run amok during their wild “last supper,” are they behaving any worse than Viridiana, whose kindness is meant to assuage her guilt, and comes with the expectation of strict obedience and reciprocal admiration? In the end, when Viridiana appears to have given up, is she beaten down or finally free? That question is presented in such an unsettling and abrupt manner at the close of the film, that I find the film difficult to like, wishing for the layer of distance that often accompanies satire. To that end, Buñuel’s effort is as successful now as it was when it was originally released. 
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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