⛰️ A Saint on a Stone, Staring at Heaven
Simon Stylites wants nothing from the world—no bread, no shelter, no touch, no sin. He climbs atop a narrow stone pillar in the middle of the desert, reaching for God with blistered hands and a chapped, bleeding soul. Around him, the poor crawl for miracles, priests chant praises, and even shepherds look on with awe. He’s the ultimate ascetic, a holy man suspended between sky and earth.
But Luis Buñuel doesn’t do saints without sarcasm. He doesn’t do piety without perversion.
From the first shot, Simon of the Desert dares us to watch holiness rot in the sun.
👠 She Came Wearing a Beard
The Devil doesn’t knock. She sashays. In this world of dust and prayer, temptation appears in a string of absurd, erotic disguises—sometimes a beautiful girl, sometimes a mocking nun, sometimes a boy with knowing eyes, and once, most blasphemously, as the bearded Christ himself.
She flirts, she mocks, she dances in slow circles around Simon’s spiritual discipline. And it’s not just physical—she invades his faith, his fear, his doubt. Holiness, under Buñuel’s camera, isn’t a radiant virtue. It’s brittle. It cracks under the pressure of s.e.x, laughter, and absurdity.
The film doesn’t present good and evil as opposites—it shows them as lovers in a centuries-long dance.
⏳ Time Warps, God is Silent, and Punk Music Starts to Play
Just when you expect some sort of saintly triumph, Buñuel punches a hole in time. In the final moments, Simon is teleported—yes, teleported—from his ancient stone pillar to a 1960s nightclub.
Here, youth twist to electric jazz, girls bare their knees, and boys move like devils in denim. Simon stands there, stiff and confused, like a relic that time has mocked. The Devil, now a nightclub girl in a miniskirt, leans in and whispers: “This is the future. Learn to dance.”
And there it is. The final seduction. Not through lust, but through irrelevance.
💀 Salvation is Boring. Sin is a Party.
At just 45 minutes, Simon of the Desert manages to unsettle theology, roast fanaticism, and slap religious pride across the face. Buñuel doesn’t hate religion—he’s fascinated by it. But what he loathes, and what he tears apart with surgical joy, is self-righteousness.
Simon’s pillar is not a ladder to God. It’s a phallic monument to pride. And the Devil, in all her shapeshifting glory, isn’t just there to tempt—she’s there to entertain, to liberate, to remind us that flesh is not the enemy of the soul.
🎥 Final Seduction
Simon of the Desert isn’t a story—it’s a blasphemous whisper inside your ear, daring you to look at your sacred beliefs and wonder: What if temptation isn’t your downfall, but your awakening?
This isn’t just a film. It’s a sexy, surreal sermon delivered by a madman with a camera—and God help us, we want more.
