Subida al cielo (Mexican Bus Ride)(Ascent to Heaven) (1951)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Stella D

  
  it's a perfectly lovely film and who knew the great cynic had such sweetness in him. a young man postpones his wedding to take a rickety bus to a distant city to make provisions for his mother's will, beset by a stream of oddball characters and frustrating circumstances… More
  it's a perfectly lovely film and who knew the great cynic had such sweetness in him. a young man postpones his wedding to take a rickety bus to a distant city to make provisions for his mother's will, beset by a stream of oddball characters and frustrating circumstances along the way. a surreal dream sequence and some pointed satire serve to remind us who we're dealing with

• Eric B

  
  This early Luis Bunuel film is not really worth seeing, sorry to say. If it has any selling point, it's not Bunuel but the outrageous sexiness of Lilia Prado. The filmmaking is quite conventional, and initially recalls one of those old Disney travelogue documentaries. The title… More
  This early Luis Bunuel film is not really worth seeing, sorry to say. If it has any selling point, it's not Bunuel but the outrageous sexiness of Lilia Prado. The filmmaking is quite conventional, and initially recalls one of those old Disney travelogue documentaries. The title "Mexican Bus Ride" essentially captures the plot -- a bus full of villagers tags along with a young man journeying to another town to work out the will details for his (allegedly) dying mother. His greedy brothers pursue an alternate scheme at home. Life on the bus meets a slew of complications: rain, traction, a flat tire, sleeplessness, childbirth, farm animals, bickering, sexual temptation and visiting Americans. The fascination of the more obscure Bunuel films is hunting for signs of his usual perverse quirks...here, we get glimpses including a beautiful woman who is mostly dismissed as an annoyance, a one-legged man, a skeptical depiction of politicians and a fantasy sequence with some visual symbolism. These mild virtues aren't enough.