The Milky Way

The Milky Way (French: La Voie lactée) is a 1969 surrealist comedy-drama film directed by Luis Buñuel, following two French vagabonds on a pilgrimage from Paris to Santiago de Compostela in Spain through episodes drawn from two thousand years of Christian history and heresy. Buñuel later grouped it with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Phantom of Liberty as a trilogy about "the search for truth."¹ It was the only film he devoted entirely to Catholic dogma itself.²

The six mysteries

The film is organized around the six primary mysteries of the Catholic faith and the objections, or heresies, they have inspired: the dual nature of Christ (man or divinity), the three-in-one nature of the Holy Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, transubstantiation (whether the host is literally Christ's body or only a metaphor), the concept of free will, and the existence of evil (if God is omnipotent, how he could allow sin and temptation). Each episode serves as a kind of dialogue between the orthodox view and its heretical counterpart.²

Buñuel and Carrière did extensive documentary work for the script, poring over historical reading and drawing on the picaresque Spanish novel for both form and substance.⁸ The closing credits certify that every quotation in the film is authentic, and each historic episode was adapted faithfully from an actual biblical text or historical account.^{2 • 9}

Encounters along the road

Along the way the pilgrims encounter, bypass, or mysteriously coexist with figures from Christian history and mythology: a Spanish inquisitor, the Whore of Babylon, the fourth-century ascetic Priscillian (the first Christian executed for heresy, played by Carrière himself), the Virgin Mary, and Christ, played by Bernard Verley. Other encounters include the devil (Pierre Clémenti), the Marquis de Sade (Michel Piccoli), a Jansenist (Jean Piat), and a roadside prostitute (Delphine Seyrig).^{2 • 1 • 3} The film's images include stigmatic children, crucified nuns, and a scene of Jesus considering a good shave.¹

The pilgrims accept whatever era or figure they meet with the equanimity of men who have learned to go with the flow, a deadpan that carries much of the film's comedy.² The film ends in front of the cathedral of Santiago, where the pilgrims discover the tomb is empty; there is no "the end" credit, leaving the viewer to decide whether the spiritual journey is finished.^{4 • 7}

Title and context

In Spain, the path of Saint James is a synonym for the Milky Way, and the Camino de Santiago has drawn travelers to the cathedral holding the supposed remains of the apostle for more than a millennium.^{10 • 2} Buñuel, raised as a strict Spanish Catholic and an atheist for most of his life, returned to his favorite theme with the film after the commercial success of Belle de jour (1967), following a pattern of pairing popular successes with more personal, less accessible works.^{10 • 2}

The film was produced in the doctrinaire atmosphere of France after May 1968, and Buñuel connected its subject to that moment: "The Milky Way is neither for nor against anything at all . . . More than anything else, the film traces a voyage into fanaticism: every character tenaciously holds on to his own fragment of truth and will, when necessary, kill or be killed for it. The road traveled by the two pilgrims can represent, finally, any political or even aesthetic ideology."² Its targets go beyond the Church; the film skewers all fanaticisms, religious, political, or aesthetic.¹¹

Reception

The film won the Interfilm Award at the 1969 Berlin International Film Festival.⁴ Reception was divided. Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that it "goes about its business with a comic, masterly cool that is more remorseless than anything Buñuel's done before," while Pauline Kael wrote that it stages Buñuel's "Spanish schoolboy's view of life joined to an adult atheist's disbelief in redemption."^{3 • 2} Buñuel was frustrated by the critical indifference with which the film was greeted.¹² Reception was ambivalent in unexpected directions: conservative newspapers tried to have it banned, Buñuel's friend Julio Cortázar accused him of financing it with Vatican money, and the Vatican itself, to Buñuel's dismay, received the film fairly warmly.²

The BFI notes that very few Buñuel films hold their secrets close, and that The Milky Way is an exception: a solid knowledge of Christian history and a head for nonlinear plotting are required to get the most out of it.¹³ The Criterion Collection released a special edition with a restored high-definition transfer, an introduction by Carrière, and an interview with film scholar Ian Christie.¹

References

1. The Milky Way (1969), The Criterion Collection
2. Mark Polizzotti, "The Milky Way: Easy Striders," The Criterion Collection (2007)
3. The Milky Way, Rialto Pictures catalogue
4. La voie lactée / The Milky Way, Cinema City archive
5. Voie lactée, La, Carlotta Films
6. Zak Goodwin, "The Milky Way," Screen Slate (2024)
7. Alina Ecke, TCD-SCSS dissertation (2015), Trinity College Dublin
8. La Voie lactée, Festival Premiers Plans d'Angers
9. The Milky Way (1969), World Movie Encyclopedia
10. "New Movies: The Love-Hate of Luis Bunuel," TIME (November 28, 1969)
11. Michael Wilmington, "Video Reviews," Los Angeles Times (1988)
12. Ed Gonzalez, "Review: The Milky Way," Slant Magazine (2003)
13. "Where to begin with Luis Buñuel," BFI

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1960s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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