Even 2nd-tier Bunuel is beter than most movies made today

Even 2nd-tier Luis Bunuel is far above most movies made today (or ever), so his distinctly 2nd-tier but still engaging "Death in the Garden" (1956) is worth seeing, especially for the 2nd half, when the exiled characters make their way through the South American (Mexican, actually) jungle to escape the pursuing armed soldiers. The trek through the jungle has some amazing scenes, as the characters gradually lose their sanity through hunger and privation: cooking the snake, the priest sitting in a rainstorm talking about soft-boiled eggs, most of all the discovery of a wrecked airplane. This is a truly Bunuelian moment in a film that in other ways doesn't bear the marks of his style throughout (it's an adaptation of a novel, and a truly commercial venture). As the scholar Victor Fuentes notes in an interview extra on the disc, the characters in the jungle suddenly are taken with the trappings of bourgoise society - makeup, jewelry, luggage - right in the middle of the jungle. Only the priest gets them to think about the rites for the dead - in fact, the priest comes off better than any other Bunuel religious figure I think. The film does have Bunuel's contempt for authority and for conventional values (Simone Signoret, as Djin, a prostitute, is really great in the role), the diamond miners' riot after an unjust execution is very exciting, reminds me of Battle of Algiers. Film doesn't have the depth and the wonder of some of Bunuel's greatest but worth watching to see how well he handles more commercial material.