Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles

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Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles is a 2018 Spanish animated biographical drama about film director Luis Buñuel and his making of the 1933 documentary Land Without Bread. The movie, directed by Salvador Simó and written with Eligio R. Montero, is based on the graphic novel by Fermín Solís.

The story follows Buñuel as he is asked to document the Las Hurdes region of Spain. His friend Ramón Acín funds the project with a lottery win, and Buñuel assembles a film crew to travel from the town of La Alberca to nearby villages. The villages show severe poverty, but Buñuel also stages some scenes for dramatic effect, while the crew records the real conditions around them. He experiences disturbing nightmares from his childhood, and the film includes intense moments, such as a funeral ritual and other moral tensions during the shoot. By 1933, Buñuel has returned to Paris to edit Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan.

The film notes that after a national coup in Spain, Ramón Acín and his wife were executed for anarchist activities. Buñuel could release the film in Spain, but without Ramón’s name; years later his name was restored to the credits.

Production uses traditional animation and adapts Solís’s 2008 graphic novel Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas. Solís helped preserve two scenes: the Virgin Mary appearing with Buñuel’s mother’s face, and Buñuel disguising himself as a nun. The project involved a large team and several studios, including Sygnatia, Glow Animation, Hampa Animation, and Submarine. The world premiere was at the Animation Is Film Festival in Los Angeles on October 20, 2018, with a Spain release on April 26, 2019.

Reception was strong: the film holds 98% on Rotten Tomatoes (51 reviews) with an average of 7.1/10, and a Metacritic score of 74/100, indicating generally favorable reviews.