35mm print courtesy of Peter Conheim/Cinema Preservation Alliance. The titular heroine, a beautiful young woman with a disturbed and tempestuous nature, escapes a women’s reform school during a stormy night. Finding refuge in the hacienda of a prosperous and respectable family, Susana (Rosita Quintana) soon destabilizes the relationship dynamics of the ranch as she seduces the men who inhabit it. While Susana is less overtly surreal in comparison to the rest of Luis Buñuel’s filmography, the film highlights the director’s subversive style as he explores social critique by demonstrating the fragility of morals through a well-to-do Mexican family.

Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.