One of Buñuel’s most subversive and genuinely funny films, The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz is a fascinating study of sexual perversity presented as a portrait of a frustrated would-be artist. Driven by an insatiable yet still unconsummated desire to murder the beautiful women who attract him, the effete Archibaldo de la Cruz finds his increasingly elaborate efforts to become a serial killer always stymied in bizarre ways. Buñuel's life-long interest in psychoanalysis is everywhere evident, from the mesmerizing primal scene recalled in flashback from the young man's childhood, to the bizarre range of sexual fetishes that recur throughout the film.