Jealousy consumes a wealthy property owner in Él, a fairly irregular entry in the oeuvre of Spanish surrealist director Luis Buñuel given  its straightforward story and employment of suspense. Francisco Galván de Montemayor (Arturo de Córdova) falls in love with Gloria Vilalta (Delia Garcés), who is dating Francisco’s friend and business associate Raul (Luis Beristáin). Using his charm, money, and stature, Francisco is able to seduce Gloria into marrying him, but the relationship is compromised by his hotheaded jealousy, made even worse when Gloria re-connects with Raul years later because she needs a friend. Buñuel paints with his surrealist brush very sparingly, only for key moments of Francisco’s mental deterioration, but his lighting and compositions overall give the film an elegant, distant majesty that works particularly well with the film’s Catholic themes and settings; note the frightening scene in the church bell tower, a scene that might have inspired Hitchcock in Vertigo (1958). Francisco’s jealousy activates his uncontrollable urge to kill what he loves, and Bunuel plays with our expectations here, but in the end Francisco will embrace the world of spirit instead.