My Favourite Spanish Films of 2014, Part Two: New

The first part of my 2014 round-up - 'Old, but new to me' - can be found here.

With my end of year lists on here I count the current year and the previous as 'new' (so in this instance - 2013 and 2014) because I generally see Spanish films on DVD (the year following their initial release in Spain). Unusually this year I'm able to include several films that I've seen in a cinema because I started attending film festivals - two of them (Viva in Manchester and the new Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival) specialise in Spanish cinema, but three others (Bradford, Edinburgh, and Leeds) also included Spanish films in their programme. I've not seen any Spanish films on general release in the UK in 2014. Obviously in terms of films released in Spain in 2014, I've only seen a few - I'm particularly looking forward to catching up with Magical Girl (dir. Carlos Vermut), La Isla Mínima / Marshland (dir. Alberto Rodríguez), Carmina y amén (dir. Paco León), Hermosa juventud / Beautiful Youth (dir. Jaime Rosales), Negociador / Negotiator (dir. Borja Cobeaga), and No todo es vigilia / Not All Is Vigil (dir. Hermes Paralluelo) in 2015.

1. Costa da Morte / Coast of Death (Lois Patiño, 2013)
I saw Patiño's feature debut at the Bradford International Film Festival in April (I reviewed it here - it's the only film I've given 5 stars to this year - and also wrote about it over at Mediático in the context of the other Spanish films shown in Bradford) and it is my overall favourite film of the year (with or without the 'Spanish' qualifier*). Part of its impact on me was definitely due to the context in which I saw it - on the Media Museum's IMAX screen (although not in IMAX format), sat on my own and approximately level with the centre of the image. It felt a bit like I was suspended over this immense landscape (and seascape). It is one of the most absorbing and visually overwhelming films I have seen in a cinema, and eight months later some of the images - a tree falling through the fog, the smoke from an extinguished fire blooming across the screen - are still flittering through my mind. I actually like it so much that I'm not sure I would watch it again unless I could see it on the big screen - so I may have to be content with having seen it once (not least because it isn't currently available). Bonus: I recently found this interview with Patiño about the film at Cinema Scope.

2. El Futuro / The Future (Luis López Carrasco, 2013)
Another film seen at the Bradford Film Festival (and included in the Mediático essay). A house party in the aftermath of the 1982 Socialist victory, before the dream went sour, with the generation who mistook the 1982 election for an end in and of itself rather than the start of something. The film is a mood piece rather than a narrative, and utilises the discombobulating effect of unsynchronised sound (so what you see is not what you're listening to) to put the viewer in amongst the hustle and bustle of the party. It also has one of the most earworm-tastic soundtracks of the year - I still had this one reverberating through my head more than a week later (the 1st thing I wrote down when I came out of the cinema was "Deserted ruins and beautiful swimming pools/ Dried out women with vampiric voices") - with the lyrics (which unusually are subtitled) lingering in the mind for far longer than the disjointed conversations we eavesdrop on. The director's thoughts on his choice of soundtrack (and videos of the songs themselves) can be found here. Another one that hasn't been released in home viewing form.

3. Todos están muertos / They're All Dead (Beatriz Sanchís, 2014)
One half of 1980s sibling pop duo Groenlandia [Greenland], Lupe (Elena Anaya) nows lives as a recluse in suburban Madrid and is reliant on her mother Paquita (Angélica Aragón) to bring up the teenage son (Pancho - played by Cristian Bernal) who quietly despises her. The superstitious Paquita finally resorts to desperate measures to try to restore her daughter to something of her former self - she takes the opportunity of the Mexican Day of the Dead to try to invoke the absent member of their family, seemingly to no avail. But unbeknownst to everyone else, Lupe can now see her missing other half - her brother Diego (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) who died fifteen years earlier. That sounds like the set up for a comedy (and the film does have its moments of humour with the ghostly situation), but it is a drama centring on an astounding performance by Elena Anaya. Lupe is a woman who seems to have no form of psychological protection, as if her nerve endings are exposed and every bit of social interaction is physically painful - it's a role that could become a catalogue of tics, but (without wishing to sound too wankerish) Anaya's performance is about being rather than doing: Lupe's fragility is made tangible with great subtlety, and Anaya walks the high wire without a safety net and in a state of grace. The Spanish DVD has optional English subs.

4. La distancia / The Distance (Sergio Caballero, 2014)
Telepathic Russian dwarves + a haiku reciting bucket (in love with a nearby chimney) = enjoyably bonkers. A team of three Russian dwarves receive mysterious instructions requesting their presence at an old Soviet power plant in Siberia where a performance artist (mathematics and dead rabbits seem to be the tools of his trade) is imprisoned in the plant warehouse according to the wishes of the now-dead power magnate who 'bought' him. The mcguffin is that the artist wants them to steal 'La distancia' - an unspecified object - from the abandoned power plant next door. What follows is the planning of the heist over the course of a week, complete with telekinesis, teleportation, more dead rabbits, and some kinky goings-on. This is laced with the same daft and absurd humour as Caballero's Finisterrae - although this film feels more polished, with a sophisticatedly layered soundscape and starkly beautiful widescreen visuals - and has an ending so WTF-abrupt that it made me laugh out loud. The Spanish DVD/Blu Dual Pack (the only format it's available in - the dual packs are something of an unfortunate trend in the Spanish market at the moment) has optional English subs (which you will no doubt need, given that the film is in Russian).

5. 10,000 Km (Carlos Marques-Marcet, 2014)
A simple two-hander with the complication that the two leads are not in the same geographical space after the opening sequence - for most of the running time, each actor (Natalia Tena and David Verdaguer) is effectively delivering a series of dramatic monologues (they are talking to a computer screen but it is often delivered straight to camera, as if talking to the viewer), and yet a palpable connection is made and maintained between the couple. A moving - and in at least one scene, excruciatingly embarrassing (deliberately) - rendering of a long distance relationship, with the possibility that sometimes you are never further apart than when you're in the same room with someone. I reviewed it here. The Spanish DVD has optional English subs.

6. Edificio España / The Building (Víctor Moreno, 2013)
By chance Víctor Moreno captured not just the deconstruction of an iconic Madrid landmark (and Francoist symbol), but also the moments leading up to the housing / property bubble bursting - effectively the opening of an economic sinkhole that Spain has yet to climb back out of. But Edificio España (an interesting space quite apart from its iconicity) and its suspended renovation are more than a metaphor for the current times, and the director finds a human side (the collateral damage in the banks' games) both in the meeting with its last resident and the multitude of nationalities doing the back-breaking labour. I wrote quite a long post about it in October. Available on VOD in Spain (at Filmin) but not currently available in other formats. UPDATE (13/03/15): it is now available on DVD (with optional English subs) in Spain. 

7. Los ilusos / The Wishful Thinkers (Jonás Trueba, 2013)
Seen at the inaugural Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival in early October (trailer here), my initial reaction to Jonás Trueba's second film was that it was a bit too clever for its own good. The audience I saw it with resisted it for at least the first twenty minutes (to the extent that I sat there wondering whether it might have been preferable to watch it at home undistracted by other people fidgeting - it was (and I discovered last night, still is) available on Curzon on Demand) - the visible filmmaking (e.g. clapperboards, visible crew, actors having to repeat dialogue for sound recording clarity) and occasionally unsynchronised sound proving hard going for some, but it picks up momentum to carry you along, and it has grown on me as I've thought about it in the time since. If I have time, I intend to rewatch it over Christmas. This black and white (filmed on 16mm), breezily romantic film about twenty-somethings in Madrid (the central character is screenwriter Leon (Francesco Carril), and we also meet his actor flatmate Bruno (Vito Sanz), friend Lilian (Isabelle Stoffel), and romantic interest Sofia (Aura Garrido)) pursing cinematic dreams and living in the in-between spaces of the city, also has several sequences that made me laugh out loud - a shaggy dog-like tale (possibly half imagined) about Bruno pursuing the director Javier Rebollo that becomes increasingly hysteria-inducing through repetition, and Leon interrupting a date at the cinema in order to question a projectionist about the quality of the print ("It's Blu-Ray" he's told to his considerable consternation) being cases in point. It is radically different to Trueba's first film (Todos las canciones hablan de mí / All the Songs Are About Me (2010) - which I really liked), so I'm interested to see where he goes with his third - Los exiliados románticos / The Romantic Exiles (which again stars Sanz, Carril, and Stoffel, and seems to be in post-production).

8. La plaga / The Plague Year (Neus Ballús, 2013)
Nominated in the Best New Director category at this year's Goya Awards (she lost to Fernando Franco (La herida / Wounded)), Neus Ballús made her feature debut with a film that falls between narrative fiction and documentary - she had spent a number of years talking to inhabitants in the area depicted, getting to know them and their stories, and the people onscreen are playing a version of themselves (they are all non-professionals). The visuals are Instagram-like (which I found challenging for the first ten minutes or so - although the faded look suits the parched heat of the location) but there is something more interesting going on in the hardscrabble existences of those trying to live and work in this in-between space (on the outskirts of Barcelona). These are people pushed to the edges of their endurance in order to survive in the current economic climate, and who can fall through the cracks without a trace (immigrants - some of whom are unable to find the permanent work required to obtain residency - the elderly, the struggling small rural businesses, and the just generally struggling). The Spanish DVD has optional English subs.

9. En tierra extraña / In a Foreign Land (Icíar Bollaín, 2014)
I wrote about it here. I find certain aspects of Bollaín's documentary - namely the glove thing - slightly twee but she gives a voice to people currently without one in their own country (because of their absence due to the economic situation), and it's an admirably angry film (and someone needs to be). I saw it at the Edinburgh Filmhouse as part of the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival in an audience that was at least 80% Spanish - the majority of whom presumably in similar circumstances to those interviewed onscreen - which made it a participatory event: boos, hisses and catcalls greeted news footage of wilfully disingenuous Spanish politicians, gasps were audible as certain stories were relayed, and laughter was shared over the collective dismay at the Scottish weather. As I said in my previous post, given the poisonous invective on immigration that is currently being regurgitated with little challenge in the UK, Bollaín's film should be shown far and wide. Not currently available in the UK although it is on various VOD platforms in Spain (including Filmin) and has received several further cinema screenings in Scotland.  

10. Stella cadente / Falling Star (Lluís Miñarro, 2014)
Another film seen in Edinburgh, but this one was at the Edinburgh Film Festival back in June. I wasn't bowled over by it at the time - I felt it was just too much of everything - but would like to see it again, not least because I was unwell on the day I saw it. It is a visually ravishing and enjoyably theatrical film with a spritely sense of humour and a wonderful central performance by Àlex Brendemühl. It has made my top 10 - despite receiving a lower star rating than some of the other films I've reviewed this year (included in the 'honourable mention' section) - because "Set these rabbits free!" is my favourite subtitle of the year. I reviewed it here. The Spanish DVD has optional English subs.


Honourable mentions (alphabetical) [links take you to what I've written about them]:
Arraianos (Eloy Enciso, 2013), Cenizas (Carlos Balbuena, 2013), Con la pata quebrada / Barefoot and in the Kitchen (Diego Galán, 2013), Ocho apellidos vascos / Spanish Affair (Emilio Martínez Lazáro, 2014), Todas las mujeres / All the Women (Mariano Barroso, 2013), Tots volem el millor per a ella / We All Want What's Best For Her (Mar Coll, 2013) Un ramo de cactus / A Bouquet of Cactus (Pablo Llorca, 2013).


Favourite performances:
Elena Anaya (Todos están muertos)
Àlex Brendemühl (Stella cadente) 
Alberto San Juan (En tierra extraña)
Nora Navas (Tots volem el millor per a ella) 
Natalia Tena and David Verdaguer (10,000 Km) 
Eduard Fernández (Todas las mujeres)


*For the record (and to give a bit of context), my overall 11 favourite films seen in a cinema this year: 
1. Costa da Morte (dir. Lois Patiño) 
2. Blue Ruin (dir. Jeremy Saulnier) 
3. Ida (dir. Pawel Pawlikowski)
4. Winter Sleep (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
5. Journey to the West (dir. Tsai Ming-liang)
6. The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson)
7. El Futuro (dir. Luis López Carrasco)
8. Starred Up (dir. David Mackenzie)
9. Mr Turner (dir. Mike Leigh)
= Refugiado (dir. Diego Lerman)
= Stray Dogs (dir. Tsai Ming-liang)

Belated Birthday

My favourite of the Spanish films I've seen in the last twelve months, Atraco a las tres / [Bank Robbery at Three O'Clock] (José María Forqué, 1962)

     An email telling me that the Nobody Knows Anybody twitter account had turned three alerted me to the fact that I had forgotten the blog’s birthday (on Thursday 6th). Caught up in other things, it had passed me by; I have entered the fourth year of this blog’s existence in much the same way as I conducted the third one.
     2013 was not a brilliant year for me. There were some positives: I finally managed to get a full-time job, after years of being stuck in part-time employment; I delivered a paper at an academic conference for the first time in more than five years; I started going to the cinema again, after a couple of years of not really bothering (a combination of it being too expensive to be a regular habit and an increasingly ‘meh’ attitude to life in general and recent cinema in particular – La grande bellezza shook me out of the meh-ness (I saw it three times on the big screen), and full-time hours mean that I can now afford to go more often); and people started writing guest posts for the blog (which is exciting for me and something I really appreciate – so, thank you Fiona Noble, Michael Pattison, and Rowena Santos Aquino). But the negatives were at times overwhelming: three weeks after I started the job, the institution I work for announced a full restructure and I (along with all of my colleagues) had to reapply and be re-interviewed for a reduced number of jobs (I hung on to my job, but the process took a couple of months and the aftermath of redundancies and reassignments, and the general feeling that good people have been messed around, was horrible and still lingers six months later); and a member of my immediate family was in hospital for surgery on three separate occasions (the last just before Christmas), which has been stressful and emotionally draining.

So, bring on 2014!

      Certain things were also clarified for me. I enjoyed the conference, which surprised me because I’ve not had good experiences with academic conferences in the past (in my experience they seem to attract people who need to make others feel small in order to make themselves feel big –a lot of unnecessary point scoring– but on this occasion everyone was lovely) and having listened to so many people researching one of my main areas of interest (but in a variety of different contexts), I left feeling that my spark of enthusiasm had been reignited. However you’ll note that I said ‘listened to’ rather than ‘spoken to’; I find navigating large groups of people I don’t know to be a bit of an anxiety generator, and it sometimes brings out my shyness to an incapacitating degree. I’m fine in small groups, or one-to-one, but I avoid large gatherings if possible. But I felt I had to go, and that I had to submit a paper, if only to prove to myself that I could and that my brain was still capable of functioning in that way. So I went. But I also know that that probably isn’t the forum I would choose to put myself into again anytime soon. What it also clarified is that I don’t think that ‘academia’ is what I’m aiming for; I want to write about films but not necessarily in that way. That’s not to say that I won’t write something up as an article and submit it to an academic journal if I have an idea that suits that setting, but I’m not setting out for an academic publications profile. The purpose of creating and sustaining a list of (academic) publications is usually to acquire an academic position / footing, and I don’t want to be ‘an academic’. But I also think that there are different (and more immediate) ways to share information, ideas, and arguments about films (from my personal perspective, Mediático and Modern Languages Open are interesting developments in that regard). I realise that whatever form you choose to work or publish in, there are hoops to be gone through, but I find that I am quite picky about which hoops I will choose to jump through. At the same time, some ‘requirements’ don’t seem like hoops at all because they’re part-and-parcel of something you enjoy doing and how you view the world. But I'm more interested in textual analysis than theoretical frameworks, and I'm currently trying to find my voice with that focus. 
      I have made a start with considering different forms / arenas of publication, but I won’t mention particulars unless / until I have something concrete. That said, I have ‘signed up’ (and am looking forward) to contributing to Mediático (initial topic still to be decided), a new blog focussing on Latin American, Latino/a, and Iberian media and film studies (find them on twitter @MediaticoMFM). In terms of what I write about, I’ve come to a number of conclusions in the past year: the blog is really helpful for working through ideas because I think by writing, and something larger can be approached piecemeal and without pressure to be ’perfect’, and it can be returned to as and when I'm ready, so that over time I can hone my thinking and can see the shape that the argument or discussion needs to take (a case in point is the Javier Bardem ‘issue’ I kept returning to, which has now turned into something else entirely and which I have submitted for consideration at an online (open access) journal); I should draw a line under some of the topics that were the basis of my PhD and look at other things; I need to be more focussed because the ‘random viewing’ thread, although it does reflect my viewing habits most of the time, does not allow me to be consistent or coherent in thinking things through; I don’t need to write about every Spanish film I watch (this relates to the previous point, but sometimes I just don’t have anything to say about a particular film and at that point I should just move on); in order to improve and expand my writing, I should write about cinema more broadly (i.e. not just that which originates from Spain). 
     So, the blog will continue but with a few changes. One element of my PhD research that I haven’t done much with is the industrial component, which I think is currently an interesting topic because the Spanish film industry has been generally imploding for at least the past 12-18 months. An offshoot of that has been the development of what is being referred to (by Caimán Cuadernos de Cine, at least) as ‘El otro cine español’ and the general trend for ‘cine low cost’ and initiatives and / or platforms such as #littlesecretfilm and Márgenes. I’m intending to mainly focus on these topics (and how they interrelate; not everyone thinks that the low cost development is good for the future of cinema made in Spain) for the next year, initially by watching a lot of films and getting a sense of what this ‘movement’ (if that is what it is) comprises and what it doesn’t; I will be looking for connections but will probably write about the films individually, or by director, to begin with. But from now on I won’t be writing about every film viewed. I’ll probably post a full list at the end of the year or something like that instead. My Carlos Saura Challenge will restart, hopefully soon, but I’m not going to attempt to give a timetable because I always break from it (but my aim has to be for more than another 6 films in the next twelve months, otherwise it'll take me more than six years to work my way through his filmography). I hope that there will be more guest posts – please tweet me or comment below if you have an idea for a post. It can relate to any aspect of Spanish cinema; starting a dialogue with people was one of my original intentions with the blog. Which brings me to my last point: writing about cinema outside of Spain. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do or how I’m going to do it. In relation to Spanish-language cinema (that isn’t technically 'Spanish’), I may still just post that here (as I did with my Pablo Larraín post), but I have also got a couple of ideas for things that in no way relate to this blog, so I will have to have a think about that. If I argue (as I do) that the emergence of specific actors / stars doesn't happen in a vacuum, that there is an industrial as well as a cultural context to their creation, the same is also true of Spanish cinema(s) more broadly; 'it' (cinema in Spain is not singular) exists within a wider network of events and circumstances and my trips to the cinema in the second half of 2013 highlighted for me that I need to pay attention to that wider context as well. So something non-Spanish should start appearing at some point in 2014 (later in the year, if I’m being realistic).
     Ordinarily by this point in the year I have posted ‘my top 5 of [previous year]’ and ’10 films to look out for in [the current year]’ posts. I’ve decided not to do that this year. My top 5 post would relate to Spanish films from 2013 and 2012 (because I mainly see things on DVD the year after their Spanish release) but I didn’t see enough films from those years in the last twelve months (I saw five, so it would be like just putting them in order of preference rather than actual favourites, and there were at least two of them that I didn’t rate) – between Carlos Saura and Alfredo Landa, I watched a lot of older films last year. In terms of the films coming this year, a couple of the ones I highlighted last year have still yet to be released (generally due to funding falling through) and at least one has stalled in pre-production (the Saura one, obviously), so there didn’t seem much point in attempting another full-blown list. Of the ones outstanding from last year, I am still interested in: Murieron por encima de sus posibilidades (dir. Isaki Lacuesta) and Presentimientos (dir. Santiago Tabernero) (the latter has been released in Spain in the past week or so). Of films that are ‘finished’ or well into production (as far as I can tell) and due for release in 2014, I will keep an eye out for: Magical Girl (dir. Carlos Vermut); La novia (dir. Paula Ortiz); Carmina y amén (dir. Paco León); La isla mínima (dir. Alberto Rodríguez); and El niño (dir. Daniel Monzón).

Twelve Spanish Films from 2013 to See in 2014

I thought that I'd start my consideration of 2013 by looking at the Spanish films from the past year that I haven't managed to see yet. I usually choose ten films, but in the last few months a host of films have piqued my interest. I've deliberately avoided choosing films that I mentioned at the start of the year (with one exception) and also those 2013 films that I've already acquired on DVD but haven't watched yet (which include Ayer no termina nunca (dir. Isabel Coixet), A puerta fría (dir. Xavi Puebla), Alacrán enamorado (dir. Santiago A. Zannou), and Barcelona nit d'estiu (dir. Dani de la Orden)). As usual, titles that appear in square brackets are my translation when there doesn't appear to be an official English language title. I've also indicated if a trailer lacks subtitles (several of them are wordless, so I've only said ‘no subtitles’ if dialogue is included). 

15 años y un día / 15 Years and One Day (dir. Gracia Querejeta)
Drama. Trailer (no subtitles).  
From the synopsis, this doesn't really sound like anything out of the ordinary - a mother (Maribel Verdú) sends her delinquent son (Arón Piquer) to stay with his ex-miltary grandfather (Tito Valverde) in the hope of straightening him out. I'm guessing that it's a 'learning experience' for everyone. It's on this list because it's Spain's entry for the Foreign Language category at the Oscars - so I'm a bit curious about it (also curious to see if this maintains the trend of being the film nominated by the Spanish Academy to represent Spain, but ending up not being the one they award Best Film at the Goyas - this always strikes me as being similar to end of year lists where people nominate films for the impression they give of themselves rather than what they actually like. The 'tasteful' film goes into consideration for the Oscars, but the actual 'favourite' wins the Goya. Sometimes.).

Caníbal / Cannibal (dir. Manuel Martín Cuenca)

Thriller. Trailer.

I've deliberately avoided replicating my 'Forthcoming Spanish Films in 2013' list from last January, but of the films on that list this one has moved to the top of the pile. Manuel Martín Cuenca's La mitad de Óscar / Half of Oscar was in my end of year top 5 in 2011 and it sounds as if he has again created a window into the life of a taciturn man (here played by Antonio de la Torre) whose solitary existence is disturbed by the arrival of a woman who brings with her echoes of the past. La mitad de Óscar seemed to me to partly be a study in loneliness, or how our loneliness becomes apparent to us when it is thrown into relief by the company of others - the trailer for Caníbal suggests something similar, but it is a good exercise in revealing atmosphere rather than plot (and I am deliberately going in as blind as possible). I also hope to catch up with the director's earlier film, La flaqueza del bolchevique / The Weakness of the Bolshevik (2002). 

Con la pata quebrada / Barefoot in the Kitchen (dir. Diego Galán)

Documentary.

A history of how women have been portrayed onscreen in Spanish cinema (utilising clips from more than 150 films from the 1930s onwards), and by extension (one would imagine) revealing something of their changing status within the country itself. Given that it is co-produced by El Deseo, I'm hopeful that it will make an appearance on DVD at some point.

El futuro / [The Future] (dir. Luis López Carrasco)

Drama. Trailer.  

A house party in 1982, in the aftermath of the PSOE's historic general election victory. This hasn't acquired distribution in Spain yet, but has been playing on the festival circuit to some acclaim (see Michael Pattison's guest post about SEFF) and has been championed by several Spanish film publications as being part of the burgeoning 'otro cine español' (as have several other films on this list). I'm hoping that it will either reach a VOD platform or a UK festival (that I actually manage to get to!). 

Gente en sitios / People in Places (dir. Juan Cavestany)

Comedy. Cast: nearly every actor currently working in Spain. Seriously.

Trailer (not subtitled), or a subtitled sequence on the TIFF site.  

A fragmented, but collective, take on the country and its people at this time of economic crisis - generally getting a raw deal at the hands of the ruling classes. If ever a situation cried out for a touch of cinematic esperpento (a jet-black humour characterised by a grotesque distortion of reality with the intent of critiquing society), then it is surely that which Spain is currently undergoing (although how much reality actually needs to be distorted in order to make it grotesque at the moment is open to debate). By all accounts it is a very funny film, but also more political than it may appear at first glance. 

La herida / Wounded (dir. Fernando Franco)

Drama. Trailer.  

The feature debut of editor (Blancanieves (Pablo Berger, 2012) is among his credits) Fernando Franco, La herida follows ambulance worker Ana (Maria Álvarez) who (unbeknownst to her) suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder (characterised by extreme swings in emotion and self-destructive behaviour). That's not really a 'plot' and my understanding is that it's more of a character study than a narrative, which means that it will stand or fall on Álvarez's performance - she has won several awards for the film, including 'Best Actress' at San Sebastián - 2013 has been a good year for female performance in cinema generally, so I'd like to catch up with the one that has stood out in Spanish cinema.

Història de la meva mort / Story of My Death (dir. Albert Serra)

Drama.

Another veteran of the festival circuit (winning the Golden Leopard in Locarno) and another film yet to be released in Spain (it has only played the Filmoteca de Catalunya so far, although rumour has it that it will get a cinema release in early 2014). It is one of only two 'Spanish' films in Sight & Sound's top 30 of 2013 poll (the other being Blancanieves - and in the battle of mythical figures, Dracula and Casanova rank higher than Snow White in this instance) and, while the film has not won favour in all quarters (and Serra's self-aggrandisement can be rather abrasive), it has cropped up often enough for me to think that I should try to see it if the opportunity presents itself. 

Los ilusos / The Wishful Thinkers (dir. Jonás Trueba)

Drama. Trailer.  

Described as an 'intermission film', Los ilusos seems to be about in-between spaces - it follows a filmmaker in between films, passing the time with friends and loved ones, and his (and their) exploration of the spaces of Madrid. I don't know if Trueba has been highlighting issues surrounding distribution and exhibition in Spain, but there is only one copy of the film and he has been accompanying it on its travels - and it is another film that has received attention for its low budget (it was filmed over several months as and when people were available to work on it). This seems markedly different to his previous film, Todas las canciones hablan de mí / All the Songs Are About Me (another former 2011 favourite of mine) and I'm eager to see where Trueba is heading.

 

Stockholm (dir. Rodrigo Sorogoyen)

Drama. Trailer.  

Two people (Aura Garrido and Javier Pereira - referred to simply as 'Her' and 'Him' in the credits) meet at a party, they spend the night together, but the next morning the game of seduction takes on a darker psychological hue. Both actors have been praised for their performances, with Garrido (who also stars in Los ilusos and is one of my 'faces to watch') picking up several awards. I've avoided reading too much beyond the initial synopsis.

Todas las mujeres / [All the Women] (dir. Mariano Barroso)

Drama. Trailer (no subtitles).  

Originally a 6 part TV series from 2010 in which veterinarian Nacho (Eduard Fernández) interacted with a different woman who signified something important in his life (his wife, his lover, an ex-girlfriend, his mother, his sister-in-law, and his psychologist) in each episode, the film reworks this into a tight ensemble piece (with all of the same cast - Michelle Jenner, Marta Larralde, Petra Martínez, María Morales, Nathalie Poza, Lucía Quintana) without an ounce of fat on it. Fernández falls into that category of actors I would watch reciting the phone book, but the reviews suggest that the women match him.

Tots volem el millor per a ella / Puzzlement (dir. Mar Coll)

Drama. Trailer (no subtitles).  

[Note: a literal translation of the title would be We All Want What's Best For Her - the film is also known by its castilian Spanish title, Todos queremos lo mejor para ella]. Geni (Nora Navas) is recovering from a traffic accident, but as she does so she finds that her old life holds little attraction for her despite the encouragement of those around her for her to return to 'normal'. As her behaviour becomes increasingly erratic, she can think of only one thing: escape. This is a case of the combination of director and actress attracting my attention - I still haven't seen Mar Coll's directorial debut, Tres dies amb la familia / Three Days with the Family, for which she won Best New Director at the Goyas in 2010, but she seems to be quietly carving out her own space for herself. I saw Nora Navas for the first time in Pa negre and she really impressed me there - this looks like a role she could have some fun with.

Tres bodas de más / Three Many Weddings (dir. Javier Ruiz Caldera)

Comedy. Trailer (no subtitles)  

Low budget festival bait may be something of a trend in this list but that doesn't mean that I haven't had my eye on the more commercial end of the market as well (several of the films I had on my January list, such as Las brujas de Zugarramurdi (dir. Álex de la Iglesia) and La gran familia española (dir. Daniel Sánchez Arévalo), fall into that category - I'm waiting for them to appear on DVD). Tres bodas de más arrived in Spanish cinemas in early December (having premiered at Venice as the closing film), just in time to give the Spanish box office some much-needed oomph. The basic set-up is that Ruth (Inma Cuesta) has the misfortune to be invited to not one but three of her exes' weddings in the space of one month - what ensues has been described as Howard Hawks meets the Farrelly Brothers, which sounds...an unlikely combination, but I've also seen Cuesta's performance described more than once as a gender reversal of the Cary Grant-as-nerd roles (Ruth is a marine biologist and her nerdishness is signalled via the international shorthand of Very Large Glasses). Cuesta has the comic chops to be very funny and Javier Ruiz Caldera's Promoción fantasma / Ghost Graduation is a sweet-natured film that seemed to actually like its characters rather than simply set out to ritually humiliate them, so fingers crossed for this one (although I will admit that finally seeing the trailer while writing this post has dampened my enthusiasm somewhat). Bonus: Rossy de Palma plays Ruth's mother.

Those are the films that I'm particularly looking to catch up with, and each seems to have occupied a significant place in the landscape of Spanish cinema in 2013, but there are many others in the mix (not to mention the numerous 2012 titles I've yet to get hold of). Several of the films mentioned above are due to arrive at Filmin in the first quarter of 2014, so they should make a return appearance here in the coming months.

Ten Spanish Films Due to Arrive in 2013

   Truth be told, I can't say for certain that all of these ten films will be released in Spain in 2013 - at least two of them have yet to go into production, and the Spanish film industry is currently more than a little precarious due to Spain's uncertain economic state.
    In the December issue of Academia, the official magazine of the Spanish Film Academy [Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España], they highlighted the impact of the Spanish government's decision to disband the existing funding structures without putting anything in their place: of the 51 films that had been announced in January 2012, only 26 had actually been made by the end of the year. Another decision by the government will also be making an impact: in September the tax on 'entertainment' (which includes cinema tickets) jumped from 8% to 21% overnight (an increase that cinemas are unable to absorb, and so ticket prices are going up). The film industry (and theatre, museum, and arts bodies generally) has been arguing that 'culture' should be protected and is petitioning for the tax to go down to 10%, but in the last quarter of 2012 admissions were already reported to be down on the same period from last year - the year end box office statistics will be even more contentious than usual (early reports suggest that Spanish cinema has managed to increase its market share, but that admissions are down overall).
   So these are worrying times for Spanish cinema, but the films / projects listed below point to a rich variety of work still being made - and on a more positive note, the January 2013 issue of Academia lists a fresh slate of films going into production in 2013. As with the previous post, if a film does not yet have an official English language title, I've put a translation of the Spanish title in square brackets.

Ayer no termina nunca / [Yesterday Never Ends] (dir. Isabel Coixet)

Cast: Javier Cámara, Candela Peña.

Coixet is being deliberately secretive about the plot (Peña has said that it's the first time she has had to sign a confidentiality agreement for a film), so all I really know is that it is set in 2017 and revolves around a breakdown in the relationship between the characters played by Cámara and Peña. [no images as yet].

Caníbal / [Cannibal] (dir. Manuel Martín Cuenca)

Cast: Antonio de la Torre.

Tagline: Love is insatiable. De la Torre plays Carlos, a tailor of good standing in Granada, whose only passions are working and eating - but he's not exactly conventional: he's a cannibal. One day he encounters the twin sister of a woman he has already devoured... The project has been described as a meeting of Hitchcock and Buñuel, which is an ambitious claim but La mitad de Óscar (Manuel Martín Cuenca, 2011) was in my 2011 top 5 (it also featured De la Torre, but only in a small role) so I'm prepared to be impressed. 

Guernica, 33 días / Guernica, 33 Days (dir. Carlos Saura)

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bárbara Goenaga

The story of Picasso's (Banderas) iconic painting, Guernica, and his love affair with photographer Dora Maar (Paltrow). This was one of the films that Academia says was delayed due to the financial problems of the film industry but it does now look set to go into production this year and will reunite Saura with producer Elías Querejeta (who produced his films in the 1960s and 1970s). 

La gran familia española / My Family and Other Hooligans (dir. Daniel Sánchez Arévalo)

Cast: Quim Gutiérrez, Antonio de la Torre, Miquel Fernández, Roberto Álamo, Patrick Criado, Verónica Echegui, Alicia Rubio.

Comedy. A family of five brothers come together for the wedding of the youngest, which unfortunately happens to coincide with Spain reaching the World Cup final. Sánchez Arévalo's often have family relationships at their core -expect tears and a lot of laughter- and here most of his de-facto repertory company / film family are reunited again (minus Raúl Arévalo, who was working with Almodóvar). The film has a Youtube channel, so a trailer will probably appear there soon. Due for release in Spain in September.

Las brujas de Zugarramurdi / Witching and Bitching (dir. Álex de la Iglesia)

Cast: Carmen Maura, Carolina Bang, Terele Pavez, Mario Casas, Hugo Silva.

Comedy. Two thieves (Casas and Silva) stage a robbery and make a run for France with two policemen (Pepón Nieto and Secun de la Rosa) in hot pursuit. Before they reach the border they cut through a forest in Zugarramurdi and find themselves placed under a curse by local witches (Maura, Bang, and Pavez).... Álex de la Iglesia has been tweeting photos from the set (@alexdelaiglesia) and it looks like we're back to another gallery of grotesques after the relative normality of La chispa de la vida.

Los amantes pasajeros / I'm So Excited! (dir. Pedro Almodóvar)

Cast: Javier Cámara, Raúl Arévalo, Carlos Areces, Cecilia Roth, Jose María Yazpik, Antonio de la Torre, Hugo Silva, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Lola Dueñas, Guillermo Toledo and cameos by Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz, and Paz Vega.

Comedy. Passengers and crew face a life-threatening situation on a flight to Mexico City. Candid confessions and musical interludes (the teaser trailer sees Cámara, Arévalo and Areces dancing in formation to the Pointer Sisters) help them keep fear of death at bay. A return to the kind of comedy Almodóvar was known for in the 1980s, the film is released in Spain in March and should be out in the UK in May. 

Los últimos días / [The Last Days] (dir. Álex & David Pastor)

Cast: Quim Gutiérrez, Jose Coronado, Marta Etura. 

Thriller. The film takes place six weeks after 'The Panic' wherein humans suddenly became agoraphobic and are now unable to go in the open air. As nature reclaims the city, Marc (Gutiérrez) attempts to travel across Barcelona to find his girlfriend (Etura). The trailer looks good.  

Murieron por encima de sus posibilidades /  [They Died Beyond Their Means] (dir. Isaki Lacuesta)

Cast: Albert Plà, Jordi Vilches, Iván Telefunken, Raúl Arévalo, Emma Suárez, Sergi López [imdb also lists Eduard Fernández, Ariadna Gil and Jose Coronado although I haven't seen them mentioned in Spanish reports].

According the writer-director, this will be a black comedy in the style of The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955). Five people damaged by the economic crisis meet by chance in a psychiatrist's waiting room and decide to form a plan to save Spain from financial ruin: to kidnap the director of the Central Bank (Josep Maria Pou). The film uses a flashback structure to show the backstory of each of the five protagonists. The cast list is intriguing and the financial crisis could do with some humour. [no images as yet].

Presentimientos / Premonitions (dir. Santiago Tabernero)

Cast: Eduardo Noriega, Marta Etura, Alfonso Bassave, Irene Escolar.

Thriller. Co-written by Noriega, this sees he and Etura as married couple Félix and Julia, on holiday to patch up their differences. On the night of their arrival they realise that they've forgotten their baby's food - Julia heads out to buy some but on her return becomes involved in an accident and then cannot find the apartment they are renting...Meanwhile Félix receives a phone call telling him that his wife is in a coma. Noriega is always on top form in thrillers and I'm interested to see what kind of writer he is. [no images as yet].

Tesis sobre un homicidio / [Thesis on a Homicide] (dir. Hernán Goldfrid) 

Cast: Ricardo Darín, Alberto Ammann.

Thriller. Argentina-Spain co-production. A law professor (Darín) comes to suspect that one of his best students (Ammann) has committed murder, and got away with it. But as he starts to conduct his own investigation, the case becomes ever more personal and he finds himself heading into a dark place...  It has Ricardo Darín, and thrillers are my favourite genre - so count me in. Trailer.