[The Milky Way is a] parable of Christianity, but it is free of Christ parallels (Nazarin), of sterile and protracted allegory (The Exterminating Angel), of shallow Evil-as-travail-toward-Good (El). The structure of this new film is taut and well-modeled, the interplay between idea and image is delightful, the whole work is funny and bitter and peculiarly devout from beginning to end. (p. 231)

The film is as well made as Buñuel's pictures have often—not always—been. Occasionally he still lets people walk out of shots, leaving us to stare for a second at empty places where the action was; and occasionally there is a meaning-less emphasis (like a close shot of the wheels of a railroad train arriving in Tours). But for the most part there is discretion, the sense of a mordant eye, and the overall feeling of flow that we get even in lesser films like...