Abismos de pasión

This “Wuthering Heights” is nothing if not Spanish in its tone. It’s also Roman Catholic down to its toes in the way that it reflects the particular obsessions of the self-described nonbeliever who made it. It’s still the tale of the mystical, all-consuming love of the well-born Cathy (here named Catalina) for her childhood sweetheart, the handsome, rudely tyrannical, former stable boy, Heathcliff, renamed Alejandro by Buñuel. The English moors are now the barren hills of rural Mexico and what once seemed to be a romantic rebellion against the genteel manners of Anglican England has now become a darker, timeless war between the forces of light and darkness. (Vincent Canby)