Él

Él is a 1953 Mexican drama directed by Luis Buñuel, the fourth of the fifteen films he directed in chronological order and the one that followed Susana and preceded The River and Death. Arturo de Córdova plays Francisco Galván de Montemayor, a wealthy, devout and outwardly respectable bachelor who becomes fixated on Gloria, played by Delia Garcés, after noticing her at a church service. Although she is engaged to an old friend of his, Ricardo, Francisco courts her and persuades her to marry him. The marriage quickly turns into a nightmare: Francisco is consumed by obsessive jealousy and paranoia, and his behaviour grows steadily more unhinged, leaving Gloria isolated. Her mother and her confessor dismiss her distress as mere moodiness, and she eventually leaves him. Francisco withdraws to a monastery, where religion appears to offer him comfort, but a later visit from Gloria and her new husband shows that his delusions have not loosened their hold on him. The screenplay was written by Luis Alcoriza and Buñuel, and Óscar Dancigers produced for Producciones Tepeyac.

The film runs 92 minutes and belongs to the drama, romance and thriller genres. It holds a strong reputation: on IMDb it rates 7.9 from around 7,200 votes, and on TMDB 7.7 from 166 votes, while a critics' rating of 9 out of 10 from twelve reviews places it above both audience scores. The cast of twenty-five credited performers includes Aurora Walker, Carlos Martínez Baena, Manuel Dondé and Rafael Banquells.