Known as «Los ambiciosos» in México, the co-producing country where director Luis Buñueñ relocated to, lived and died, as well as in most Latin American territories, this was made in 1959, the year Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, so while anyone can believe the plot and location refers to him and his homeland, they do not. Yes, the island of Ojeda is a Caribbean country ruled by a dictator (Andrés Soler at his meanest - he does receive credit in the Mexican version), but its banana-based economy (no sugar, tobacco or rum, as in Cuba) and the absence of a guerrilla movement, makes it "NowhereLand" with Gérard Philipe (in his last role) as a handsome idealist who falls for the wrong woman (María Félix looking very beautiful). In any case we will never know if Buñuel or in that case novelist Henri Castillou were able to see the future. A good political melodrama.
9 Reviews
Political Melodrama
claudio_carvalho24 March 2014
In the fictitious island of Ojeda, people lives a dictatorship and the island is a penal colony of forced labor with ordinary and political prisoners together. When the Governor Mariano Vargas (Miguel Ángel Ferriz) is murdered by a sniper, his idealistic secretary Ramón Vázquez (Gérard Philipe) is assigned director of security and in charge of the prison. Vázquez is in love with the widow Inés Rojas (Maria Felix) and they have a love affair. But when the new governor Alejandro Gual Miguel (Jean Servais) arrives in the island, he wants Inés to be his lover. Further he forces the killer to sign a false confession telling that Vázquez is the responsible for the attempt against the previous governor and blackmails Inés. But Inés is a female fatale that knows the political games and manipulations.
"La fièvre monte à El Pao" is a political melodrama by Buñuel based on politics instead of his famous surrealism. The theme politics was adopted by Costa-Gravas years later and Glauber Rocha probably wrote his "Terra em Transe" inspired in this movie. Inés Rojas is a femme fatale but the plot is not a film-noir, only the story of an idealistic man that joins politics in a dictatorship and finds how difficult is keep his ideals. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "Os Ambiciosos" ("The Ambitious")
"La fièvre monte à El Pao" is a political melodrama by Buñuel based on politics instead of his famous surrealism. The theme politics was adopted by Costa-Gravas years later and Glauber Rocha probably wrote his "Terra em Transe" inspired in this movie. Inés Rojas is a femme fatale but the plot is not a film-noir, only the story of an idealistic man that joins politics in a dictatorship and finds how difficult is keep his ideals. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "Os Ambiciosos" ("The Ambitious")
Mounting fever.
morrison-dylan-fan6 March 2015
Warning: Spoilers
With Easter coming up,I decided to start searching round for a rare title from auteur film maker Luis Buñuel,that I could give to a friend as a holiday present.As I began searching for a Buñuel title,I decided to finally take a look at an actress which I had seen a fellow IMDber mention in a number of posts,called María Félix.
Checking Félix's credits,I was happily caught by surprise,when I discovered that she had made a movie with Buñuel!,which led to me getting ready to climb up the mountains of El Pao.
View on the film:
Filming his adaptation of Henri Castillou's novel in France,co- writer/(along with Luis Alcoriza/ Charles Dorat & Louis Sapin)director Luis Buñuel and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa bake the film in a scorching hot South American heat,with Buñuel using superb long tracking shots to show the tension in the fictional country starting to bubble over.
Using the assassination as a starting pistol, Buñuel makes white the main colour for the title,with each of the would-be leaders wearing crisp white suits,which Buñuel subtly darkens/soils,as they get pulled closer to the murky political world of the country.
Toning down the famous surreal aspects in Buñuel's work,the writers take an extremely sharp political strike with the film,as the residences hopes of change are shown to be pushed aside,as the people in power are shown to be so self-focused,that they keep allowing their citizens to end up in the same shackles that they were in before.
Along with the effect that the killing has on the residence,the writers also brilliantly show a decaying Film Noir world of the country's political leaders,as each of their ideas fade away,to be replaced by a ruthless thrust for holding on to power in any way possible.
Giving the title a shot of Film Noir,the alluring María Félix gives a fantastic femme fatale performance as Inés Rojas,with Félix peeling Rojas playfulness layer by layer,to reveal a dame who is determined to walk over any man who gets in the way of Rojas grip on power.
Tragically dying from cancer during the making of the title, (which led to parts of the movie having to be re-written,and a body double also being used) Gérard Philipe gives an excellent final performance as Ramón Vázquez,thanks to Philipe showing a wide-eye sense of excitement in Vázquez hopes of changing the political climate in the country,which gradually gets shadowed by feeling of betrayal & fear,as Vázquez finds fever continuing to mount in El Pao.
Checking Félix's credits,I was happily caught by surprise,when I discovered that she had made a movie with Buñuel!,which led to me getting ready to climb up the mountains of El Pao.
View on the film:
Filming his adaptation of Henri Castillou's novel in France,co- writer/(along with Luis Alcoriza/ Charles Dorat & Louis Sapin)director Luis Buñuel and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa bake the film in a scorching hot South American heat,with Buñuel using superb long tracking shots to show the tension in the fictional country starting to bubble over.
Using the assassination as a starting pistol, Buñuel makes white the main colour for the title,with each of the would-be leaders wearing crisp white suits,which Buñuel subtly darkens/soils,as they get pulled closer to the murky political world of the country.
Toning down the famous surreal aspects in Buñuel's work,the writers take an extremely sharp political strike with the film,as the residences hopes of change are shown to be pushed aside,as the people in power are shown to be so self-focused,that they keep allowing their citizens to end up in the same shackles that they were in before.
Along with the effect that the killing has on the residence,the writers also brilliantly show a decaying Film Noir world of the country's political leaders,as each of their ideas fade away,to be replaced by a ruthless thrust for holding on to power in any way possible.
Giving the title a shot of Film Noir,the alluring María Félix gives a fantastic femme fatale performance as Inés Rojas,with Félix peeling Rojas playfulness layer by layer,to reveal a dame who is determined to walk over any man who gets in the way of Rojas grip on power.
Tragically dying from cancer during the making of the title, (which led to parts of the movie having to be re-written,and a body double also being used) Gérard Philipe gives an excellent final performance as Ramón Vázquez,thanks to Philipe showing a wide-eye sense of excitement in Vázquez hopes of changing the political climate in the country,which gradually gets shadowed by feeling of betrayal & fear,as Vázquez finds fever continuing to mount in El Pao.
Bunuel gets (explicitly) political
Tryavna5 August 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Based on the difficulty I had tracking this down and the fact that there's only one other review, this must be one of Bunuel's rarest and hardest-to-see movies. It belongs to a group of three French-Mexican co-productions that Bunuel made in the late-1950s just before his return to Europe (with "Viridiana") but after a few earlier Mexican films ("El" and "Rehersal for a Crime") had reached appreciative audiences in France. Like a lot of Bunuel's (almost criminally underavailable and under-appreciated) Mexican-era works, "Fever Rises in El Pao" is basically "realistic" as opposed to "surrealistic." There is a brief sequence around the middle of the film when Maria Felix and Jean Servais engage in a sadomasochistic relationship that is pure Bunuel, but for the most part, this one is pretty low-key and straightforward.
"Fever" is actually one of Bunuel's plottier movies. It's set on Ojeda, an island under the control of a fictional French-speaking banana republic. In the opening sequence, a detached narrator (another device typical of Bunuel's Mexican period) informs of Ojeada's "facts": its capitol is El Pao, its major resources are bananas and fish, etc. But the island's real importance is its prison labor camp (modeled on Devil's Island perhaps?), where political prisoners are sent. When the governor of the island is assassinated, the governorship itself becomes a pawn in two different but intertwined games: the struggle for power on the mainland between the president and his brother and the rivalry for the hand of the former governor's widow (Maria Felix) between the new governor (Jean Servais) and the former governor's secretary (Gerard Philipe). The secretary is the film's nominal hero -- an idealist who thinks he can change political conditions from within but who is increasingly corrupted out of sheer necessity for survival. Thus "Fever" also becomes a kind of morality tale. At any rate, it's surely the most politically explicit movie Bunuel ever made (though perhaps it doesn't have the resonance of "Diary of a Chambermaid").
If you like and know what to expect from Bunuel's Mexican period, then you'll more than likely find this a rewarding film. It's not a masterpiece, like "Los Olvidados" or "El" or even "Ascent to Heaven," but it compares favorably with "Susana," "El Bruto," and "Nazarin." (It's certainly stronger and more interesting than "Gran Casino" and "A Woman without Love.") Its greatest strengths are probably Gabriel Figueroa's cinematography and Jean Servais' performance, which has some nice touches (like an affection for a parakeet and a cruel streak made more horrific by its casualness). I also liked the music score, which seems a bit more carefully integrated into the film than was usual for Bunuel. (Like John Ford, Bunuel apparently didn't care much non-diegetic music in his movies.)
"Fever" is actually one of Bunuel's plottier movies. It's set on Ojeda, an island under the control of a fictional French-speaking banana republic. In the opening sequence, a detached narrator (another device typical of Bunuel's Mexican period) informs of Ojeada's "facts": its capitol is El Pao, its major resources are bananas and fish, etc. But the island's real importance is its prison labor camp (modeled on Devil's Island perhaps?), where political prisoners are sent. When the governor of the island is assassinated, the governorship itself becomes a pawn in two different but intertwined games: the struggle for power on the mainland between the president and his brother and the rivalry for the hand of the former governor's widow (Maria Felix) between the new governor (Jean Servais) and the former governor's secretary (Gerard Philipe). The secretary is the film's nominal hero -- an idealist who thinks he can change political conditions from within but who is increasingly corrupted out of sheer necessity for survival. Thus "Fever" also becomes a kind of morality tale. At any rate, it's surely the most politically explicit movie Bunuel ever made (though perhaps it doesn't have the resonance of "Diary of a Chambermaid").
If you like and know what to expect from Bunuel's Mexican period, then you'll more than likely find this a rewarding film. It's not a masterpiece, like "Los Olvidados" or "El" or even "Ascent to Heaven," but it compares favorably with "Susana," "El Bruto," and "Nazarin." (It's certainly stronger and more interesting than "Gran Casino" and "A Woman without Love.") Its greatest strengths are probably Gabriel Figueroa's cinematography and Jean Servais' performance, which has some nice touches (like an affection for a parakeet and a cruel streak made more horrific by its casualness). I also liked the music score, which seems a bit more carefully integrated into the film than was usual for Bunuel. (Like John Ford, Bunuel apparently didn't care much non-diegetic music in his movies.)
politic experiment of Bunuel
Kirpianuscus5 December 2017
for me, its basic virtue is to be the last film of Gerard Philipe. and an experiment , with decent result, of Bunuel trip in politic noir genre. it is far to be a good or a bad movie. because the genre was defined by Costa Gavras , it was very popular in "60 decade and it seems have the status of fragile equilibrium between themes, motifs, explanations, pretexts. the meet between Maria Felix and Jean Servais does the presence of Gerard Philipe almost symbolic. sure, at the second view, his Vazques becomes more realistic but more as the honest young man against a corrupt regime, in clothes of David against Goliath. short, a good film for another side of Bunuel art. for a reasonable portrait of dictatorship. and for few references to Soviet Union. or Franz Kafka.
La fièvre monte à El Pao (1959)
MartinTeller6 January 2012
One of Bunuel's most straightforward films and his most openly political, a drama about an idealist trying to foment rebellion in the fictional town of El Pao. Lacking Bunuel's comic sensibilities or surrealist touch, it's a pretty cut-and-dry affair with few surprises. The social commentary is sharp enough, but the film lacks zing and never seems to get off the ground. The highlight is the sultry performance by Maria Felix as the duplicitous wife of the governor. She gives Bunuel a chance to inject some of his sexual power dynamics and incorporate them into the political sphere. Otherwise, somewhat watchable but unengaging.
The failure of Idealism.
brogmiller23 February 2024
This is a comparatively obscure entry in the Luis Bunuel canon and although the whole is less than the sum of its parts, this never less than intriguing director has given us a combination of pot boiler and seering political statement.
The mercurial and charismatic Gérard Philippe plays a man whose idealistic principles cause incalculable damage and the poignancy of his well-meaning but tragic character is enhanced by a visibly ailing actor who was to die of liver cancer four months after filming was completed.
It must be said that the 'fever' of the title doesn't really amount to much as the anticipated mutiny by the prisoners takes place off screen but of course the temperature is guaranteed to rise and the pulse to quicken whenever the force of nature that is Maria Félix is on the premises. The film's most effective scene, for this viewer at any rate, is that in which her apparent submission to Jean Servais is in fact a triumph of dominance. Servais is a splendid villain and as always, his soulful expression evinces our sympathy no matter how nefarious the character he is playing.
Bunuel was not especially fond of this film and evidently regretted not having provided Philippe with a more worthy swansong. During the filming Bunuel happened to ask his leading man: "Why did you agree to make this film?" When Philippe said: "I don't know. And you?" the director replied: "I don't know either."
The mercurial and charismatic Gérard Philippe plays a man whose idealistic principles cause incalculable damage and the poignancy of his well-meaning but tragic character is enhanced by a visibly ailing actor who was to die of liver cancer four months after filming was completed.
It must be said that the 'fever' of the title doesn't really amount to much as the anticipated mutiny by the prisoners takes place off screen but of course the temperature is guaranteed to rise and the pulse to quicken whenever the force of nature that is Maria Félix is on the premises. The film's most effective scene, for this viewer at any rate, is that in which her apparent submission to Jean Servais is in fact a triumph of dominance. Servais is a splendid villain and as always, his soulful expression evinces our sympathy no matter how nefarious the character he is playing.
Bunuel was not especially fond of this film and evidently regretted not having provided Philippe with a more worthy swansong. During the filming Bunuel happened to ask his leading man: "Why did you agree to make this film?" When Philippe said: "I don't know. And you?" the director replied: "I don't know either."
REPUBLIC OF SIN (Luis Bunuel, 1959) ***
Bunuel197614 October 2010
With this, I begin a complete Luis Bunuel retrospective - in preparation for a proposed series of talks my twin brother Roderick and I have been invited to hold about our favorite film-maker. In keeping with the latter's own hatred of symmetry, I opted to start with those titles I am only marginally familiar with...but in reverse chronological order! Ironically, while REPUBLIC OF SIN was among the first films of his that I watched (on late-night Italian TV), it remains one of his least-known (and hardest-to-find) efforts. Indeed, recently I have had to speedily provide an Italian "Facebook" friend of mine with a copy of it - on account of a journalist acquaintance of his who was writing an article on the film itself! Though I concede it is only a minor work in Bunuel's canon, the rewards one reaps from the picture are still considerable - infused as it is with most of his typical concerns (right from the opening narration denouncing a quaint monastery as a symbol of European/Catholic oppression on the fictitious South American island on which it is exclusively set!).
The film - which would eventually be remade for French TV in 1993 - is perhaps best-remembered today for being the swan-song of its popular, handsome and talented leading man, Gerard Philipe, who died of cancer that same year at the young age of 36! Bunuel, having met him on the set of Yves Allegret's THE PROUD ONES (1953), had long wanted to work with the French star and, over the next few years, had unsuccessfully tried to set up adaptations of THE MONK (eventually filmed in 1973 with Franco Nero from Bunuel's own script) and THE HORSEMAN ON THE ROOF (filmed in 1995 from long-term Bunuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere's script) for this purpose! Though Philipe's customary sprightly charm was not required by the sullen premise anyway, the effect of the illness can be seen in his gaunt features and especially the character's own psychological/physical torment during the movie's latter stages. The fact, then, that the subject of a possible future with the heroine is often breached (but, sensibly, not attained) during the course of the film makes the whole all the more poignant. Incidentally, his naïve idealism is such that he even allows himself into an executive position, serving bosses that are always intrinsically corrupt. Actually, he is berated for this by his former mentor, now a political prisoner in the penal colony of El Pao. Even when Philipe becomes acting Governor himself, he has to answer to the State President (shown in just one scene as having more consideration for his prize horse than the nation he purports to lead) and, in a society stifled by bureaucratic red tape, the most subversive act of rebellion he can muster is to tear up the paperwork!
Philipe is wonderfully supported by Maria Felix, the most famous Mexican actress, who had previously worked in Italy in the somewhat hysterical 1951 peplum MESSALINA and in France, for Jean Renoir, on FRENCH CANCAN (1954). Here she portrays the despotic Governor's sultry but unloving wife. The former's murder at his birthday celebrations - in which famished peasants rush towards the tantalizing slabs of meat on defiant display - sets the narrative in motion; his successor (the splendid Jean Servais of RIFIFI [1955] fame) is equally despicable and soon he too embarks on a masochistic relationship with Felix (metaphorically essayed in a bullfighting scene where a matador is gored to death as one is wooing the other). Actually, Felix had fallen for Philipe (after the customary initial friction pertaining to class structure) and she dutifully intercedes on his behalf with the suavely sadistic Servais (at one point, he humiliatingly has her disrobe in his office!). Indeed, the director inserts his usual quota of sexual tension (involving Felix and the various men in her life) into an already ironic and twist-laden narrative: Philipe and Felix 'organize' a prison revolt for which they hope Servais will be blamed and expelled from office but, really, he had secretly planned it all along so as to eliminate the political prisoners! The central couple then think of leaving the island for good but Philipe, guilt-ridden over the futile massacre, has second thoughts...which leads to Felix perishing in a car explosion while fleeing a checkpoint; finally, Philipe (a fervent political activist off-screen) condemns himself by wilfully disobeying his superior's orders.
The end result is the director's most overtly political film but also his least favorite among those he shot in the French language! Even so, it is aided immeasurably by frequent collaborator Gabriel Figueroa's harsh monochrome photography - a trademark of Bunuel's Mexican period; the film, in fact, can pretty much be seen as a companion piece to his more readily enjoyable DEATH IN THE GARDEN (1956), similarly a French co-production set on an island beset with political turmoil and, like that film, it also benefits from a notable musical score by Paul Misraki.
Even if I watched REPUBLIC OF SIN on a 40" TV screen, a lot of the time I could not keep up with the Italian subtitles (though my having studied French at school helped and the plot was, in any case, not all that difficult to follow) - while my Pioneer DVD had intermittent playback issues by freezing between chapters and occasionally letting out a deafening screech!
The film - which would eventually be remade for French TV in 1993 - is perhaps best-remembered today for being the swan-song of its popular, handsome and talented leading man, Gerard Philipe, who died of cancer that same year at the young age of 36! Bunuel, having met him on the set of Yves Allegret's THE PROUD ONES (1953), had long wanted to work with the French star and, over the next few years, had unsuccessfully tried to set up adaptations of THE MONK (eventually filmed in 1973 with Franco Nero from Bunuel's own script) and THE HORSEMAN ON THE ROOF (filmed in 1995 from long-term Bunuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere's script) for this purpose! Though Philipe's customary sprightly charm was not required by the sullen premise anyway, the effect of the illness can be seen in his gaunt features and especially the character's own psychological/physical torment during the movie's latter stages. The fact, then, that the subject of a possible future with the heroine is often breached (but, sensibly, not attained) during the course of the film makes the whole all the more poignant. Incidentally, his naïve idealism is such that he even allows himself into an executive position, serving bosses that are always intrinsically corrupt. Actually, he is berated for this by his former mentor, now a political prisoner in the penal colony of El Pao. Even when Philipe becomes acting Governor himself, he has to answer to the State President (shown in just one scene as having more consideration for his prize horse than the nation he purports to lead) and, in a society stifled by bureaucratic red tape, the most subversive act of rebellion he can muster is to tear up the paperwork!
Philipe is wonderfully supported by Maria Felix, the most famous Mexican actress, who had previously worked in Italy in the somewhat hysterical 1951 peplum MESSALINA and in France, for Jean Renoir, on FRENCH CANCAN (1954). Here she portrays the despotic Governor's sultry but unloving wife. The former's murder at his birthday celebrations - in which famished peasants rush towards the tantalizing slabs of meat on defiant display - sets the narrative in motion; his successor (the splendid Jean Servais of RIFIFI [1955] fame) is equally despicable and soon he too embarks on a masochistic relationship with Felix (metaphorically essayed in a bullfighting scene where a matador is gored to death as one is wooing the other). Actually, Felix had fallen for Philipe (after the customary initial friction pertaining to class structure) and she dutifully intercedes on his behalf with the suavely sadistic Servais (at one point, he humiliatingly has her disrobe in his office!). Indeed, the director inserts his usual quota of sexual tension (involving Felix and the various men in her life) into an already ironic and twist-laden narrative: Philipe and Felix 'organize' a prison revolt for which they hope Servais will be blamed and expelled from office but, really, he had secretly planned it all along so as to eliminate the political prisoners! The central couple then think of leaving the island for good but Philipe, guilt-ridden over the futile massacre, has second thoughts...which leads to Felix perishing in a car explosion while fleeing a checkpoint; finally, Philipe (a fervent political activist off-screen) condemns himself by wilfully disobeying his superior's orders.
The end result is the director's most overtly political film but also his least favorite among those he shot in the French language! Even so, it is aided immeasurably by frequent collaborator Gabriel Figueroa's harsh monochrome photography - a trademark of Bunuel's Mexican period; the film, in fact, can pretty much be seen as a companion piece to his more readily enjoyable DEATH IN THE GARDEN (1956), similarly a French co-production set on an island beset with political turmoil and, like that film, it also benefits from a notable musical score by Paul Misraki.
Even if I watched REPUBLIC OF SIN on a 40" TV screen, a lot of the time I could not keep up with the Italian subtitles (though my having studied French at school helped and the plot was, in any case, not all that difficult to follow) - while my Pioneer DVD had intermittent playback issues by freezing between chapters and occasionally letting out a deafening screech!
Political games in El pao.
dbdumonteil6 October 2001
For a director like Luis Bunuel,this is a holding pattern movie.Bunuel is neither Costa Gavras nor Alan J Pakula and his political plot falls short of its goal.What's definitely lacking here is madness,the surrealism,almost present at least in one sequence,dear to the great Spanish artist.His art becomes ineffective when it deals with pure drama.The irony seems tamed,subdued.Maria Felix's part is sometimes some kind of Maupassant's "Boule de suif" (a character from the nineteenth century),sometimes some kind of thirties Marlene Dietrich (Sternberg's "dishonored").In a nutshell,originality is not this character's forte.Gerard Philipe (sadly,soon to die from cancer)is miscast and ill-at -ease ,in his part of "intellectual trying to sweeten the dictature".Nevertheless,he ended his career with something more commendable than the disastrous Vadim's "les liaisons dangereuses".
Coming after "Nazarin" "la mort en ce jardin" or "cela s'appelle l'aurore",and preceding such masterworks as "Viridiana" "Belle de Jour" or "Tristana", this fever is not so hot.
Coming after "Nazarin" "la mort en ce jardin" or "cela s'appelle l'aurore",and preceding such masterworks as "Viridiana" "Belle de Jour" or "Tristana", this fever is not so hot.
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