"Land without Bread" 
Directed by Luis Bunuel 
27 minutes, 1932

Bunuel put together a film on a very backward 
region of Spain where economic conditions were 
extremely difficult despite the fact that Spain 
overall was one of the better off countries in the 
world.

It's easy to see that with the sort of life the 
people had there, there were both reactionary 
political forces representing old ways of doing 
things in Spain simultaneous with a desperate need 
for revolutionary upheaval in Spain. 

The government banned the film and civil war in 
Spain came four years later. The primitive 
economic conditions in the film add to the 
impression that Spain in the 1930s definitely had 
some material conditions that favored the 
reactionaries and created a basis for Franco's 
fascism. Today it is probably best to consider 
this film a positive contribution to anthropology.