Fever Mounts at El Pao / La fièvre monte à El Pao (1959)

Director: Luis Buñuel
Stars: Gérard Philipe, María Félix, Jean Servais

"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. 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.


Also Known As (AKA):
- Für ihn verkauf' ich mich (1959) - West Germany
- Das Fieber steigt in El Pao (1959) - West Germany
- Los ambiciosos (1959) - Mexico

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.

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Fever Mounts at El Pao / La fièvre monte à El Pao (1959)

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"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").

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Fever Mounts at El Pao / La fièvre monte à El Pao (1959)

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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.)

IMDB Reviewer

Luis Buñuel's El fièvre monte à El Pao (Fever Mounts at El Pao) is the story of a South American dictatorship on the brink of liberalization. Though the film would become Buñuel's least favorite of all his French productions, it's difficult to dismiss the film if only because it remains the great director's most overtly political creation.

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Fever Mounts at El Pao / La fièvre monte à El Pao (1959)

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The plot is a feverish gumbo of political intrigue, red tape, loose sex and double-crossings: Governor Mariano Vargas (Miguel Ángel Ferriz) is assassinated by Lieutenant García (Raúl Dantés), who blames the liberal-minded governor's aide, Ramón Vászquez (Gérard Philipe), of conspiring to murder when the aide's relationship to the assassinated governor's wife, Inés Rojas (sex kitten María Félix), becomes known. However powerful many of the vignettes may be, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. The opening narration describes El Pao as an island so isolated from the rest of the world that leaving the island is next to impossible. The island's unseen president governs from atop a hill while thousands of prisoners work day and night constructing the mayor's plantation. As the newly elected governor, Ramón must reconcile his liberal agenda with regard to an oppressive dictatorship that scoffs at worker's rights.

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Fever Mounts at El Pao / La fièvre monte à El Pao (1959)

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Buñuel more or less wears the film's anarchist agenda on his sleeve (slogans uttered throughout include "if he would only show more humanity," "they'll hang him one day" and "when they're hands aren't busy they'll be thinking") though he fabulously evokes El Pao's mounting "fever" via Inés's hellfire temperament, a metaphor-laden bullfight and the sounds of native drums not unlike those that herald the second coming of Christ in L'Age d'Or. (Comparisons between the film and Metropolis, a film Buñuel was very critical of when it was first released, are obvious and its easy to equate Inés with Lang's infamous Bolshevik Maria.) What with all the missives and writs of agenda waiting to be signed, Fever Mounts at El Pao is noticeably burdened by excess paperwork. All is forgiven though when Buñuel fascinatingly contemplates the ultimate price of freedom when Ramón Vászquez scoffs at those very missives and is liberated as a result.

Slant Magazine

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