Ascent To Heaven

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Film Description

Aka Mexican Bus Ride. Newly wed Esteban is shanghaied mid-honeymoon by his brothers to see their dying mother. Getting there is half the fun - with a screenplay based on a flurry of real-life events, Bunuel crams a bus with raucous peasants, pompous businessmen, shifty politicians and a town vamp intent on straying Esteban from the good path. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes.

Film Information

DVD Extras

Trailers; Photo Gallery; Biography; Bunuel Essay.

Technical Details

Film Media

3 Stills

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Review by Pasquale Iannone on 10th October 2006

Buñuel directed three full features in 1951 of which Ascent to Heaven was the last. Though the production ran out of money during the shoot, it still won the prize for the best avant-garde film at Cannes that year.

Based loosely on the experiences of the film’s producer Manuel Altolaguirre, Ascent to Heaven tells of a young bridegroom, Oliverio, whose wedding night is interrupted by the news that his mother is dying. After rushing to her bedside, she asks him to travel to the nearest town to find a notary to draw up her will. The film then follows Oliverio and his eventful bus ride across the mountains by a pass called ‘Ascent to the Heavens’, accompanied by an eccentric collection of fellow passengers including a local politician and a sultry vamp. Not as unflinchingly realistic as Los Olvidados, nor as dark as El, the film, with its satire and dream sequences, is nevertheless archetypal Buñuel, an eccentric road movie imbued with a playfulness not always evident in the director’s other films of the period.

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