Elle on AllMovie

This remake of Luis Bunuel's El (1952), which in turn was based on Mercedes Pinto's book, puts a new spin on the tale by making the protagonist a mad woman married to an equally insane man. The original story focused mainly on the husband's jealousy of his unusually beautiful "trophy wife." The wife is Delia, who spends most of her time living alone in the midst of her husband's vast mansion which is filled with fantastic sculptures and rare architecture. Her husband values her more as a piece of living art than a real person and jealously guards her thusly. He is convinced that she is always philandering or thinking about it. Delia does not know what to do. He has crushed her spirit and she fears his mental instability and bears his insistence that they make love in the moonlight beside the pool with quiet dignity. Inside, she worries about their son. Her inability to interact with others and to escape the situation begins taking its toll and eventually, she too begins to lose her tenuous grip on sanity.