Nazarín

One of the least sardonic of all Buñuel's films. Father Nazarín, a non-denominational journeyman priest, wanders through the plagues, sins and poverty of the secular world, experiencing a number of episodes that echo incidents in the gospels...until he learns the momentous lesson that he can receive charity as well as give it. Buñuel never ridicules Nazarín's efforts to follow Christ's teachings, but instead stresses the priest's fundamental detachment, and observes how irrelevant most of his work is to the sinners he tangles with. To the extent that the open ending is optimistic, Nazarín is a true Buñuel hero.