Bunuel's fantastic Last Breath

My Last Breath (Luis Bunuel) *****

I'm biased as I'm extremely curious about Bunuel, but this is all you could ever want from a book: its fun, intriguing, informative and addictive. It meanders back and forth through time, across themes and ideologies and along a stream of consciousness, like a wonderful movie. In many ways, I see this as a 'lad's' book (please excuse my outright stereotypification); he spends almost a chapter raving about the joys of alcohol and tobacco (including his recipe for the perfect Martini), and there's lots of cavorting, rioting, perving and scandal. There are some extreme and fucked up notions in here too (an example of a Surrealist piece of artwork described involves a seven year old girl standing on stage in her Communion dress, reciting the dialogue from hardcore porn movie). But that's what makes this such a fun, controversial riot of a read . Yes, there's a lot of history: names, dates, eras, references; but its all contextual and its all relevant. If you have any interest in the Surrealists, the emergence of cinema, or the fantastic life of a subversive filmmaker (he befriends everyone from Salvador Dali to Charlie Chaplin), I strongly recommend this.