My Top 5 Spanish Films Seen in 2012

   As I've said previously, because I don't live in Spain I usually see Spanish films a year or so after their original release -when they arrive on DVD, or increasingly when they appear on Filmin: my criteria for the top 5 of the year is that they have to have been released in Spain in either 2011 or 2012. I've watched fewer films this year, not because of lack of choice but rather a lack of time; I've had to be a bit pickier about what I've spent my time on and have probably not watched as wide a variety as last year. You will see that there are films included below that I have not yet written about on the blog (including three of my top five) -I haven't written any blog posts since the end of October, but I have been watching films. I'll probably write a Random Viewing round-up post in January to cover those additional films (although the ones that made the top 5 should have their own standalone posts).
   Of my top five I have got two films level in top position - they are completely different beasts but I couldn't choose between them

My Top Five:

=1. De tu ventana a la mía / Chrysalis (Paula Ortíz, 2012)

Trailer (subtitled)

This film wasn't really on my radar until Paula Ortíz was nominated for 'Best New Director' at the Goyas earlier this year. Having seen it, I'm now surprised that it didn't garner more attention because it is a stunning directorial debut - 'stunning' in both its ambition (it interweaves three stories from different eras) and its appearance (it is easily the most beautiful film I've seen this year). The film tells the story of three women in three different eras: in 1923, Violeta (Leticia Dolera) in the mountains; in 1941, Inés (Maribel Verdú) in the arid countryside; in 1975, Luisa (Luisa Gavasa) in the city. Each strand of the story has a distinct look: a burnished gold for Inés; blue for Luisa; and somehow Violeta appears almost to be viewed through glass. The review in Caiman Cuadernos de Cine observed that a different film would have focussed on the men in the stories - these women exist at the margins of history, they are those left behind, but Ortíz suggests that their bravery is no less remarkable. Essentially these are tales of love, loss, and surviving with dignity. I hope to write a longer post about it in the future.

=1. No habrá paz para los malvados / No Rest for the Wicked (Enrique Urbizu, 2011)

Trailer (not subtitled)

I watched this back in February, mentioned it in my post about the Goya winners (it won Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actor) and fully intended to write a proper piece on it, perhaps in relation to Urbizu's other thrillers, but then work got in the way. I rewatched it last week and it still stands up as an expertly-made thriller without an ounce of fat on it: everything matters and everything has a pay off. Likewise Urbizu and co-writer Michel Gaztambide refuse to spoon-feed or talk down to the audience - they expect you to pay attention and read between the lines without obvious signposts or a character spouting exposition to keep you up to speed. This is all the more true because the central performance (Jose Coronado) is largely wordless; Santos Trinidad is somewhere between a lone wolf and a shark (he must keep moving) and is uncommunicative to the point of surliness. Are we meant to root for him? Sympathies are not straightforward because his motives are murky and tied to self-interest and he really has no idea about what he has stepped in to. Again, I hope to write a longer post (it is formally an interesting film with many layers and doubling) in the New Year.

3. Diamond Flash (Carlos Vermut, 2012)

Trailer (subtitled)

I put off watching this one right until the last minute because the amount of hype around it made me think that I could only find it disappointing. A cult/underground hit in Spain, positive word-of-mouth started spreading in the summer when it debuted on Filmin (part of a prize it had won on the festival circuit -it has recently had a DVD release) and whipped up almost to the point of hysteria (it has been talked about as one of the most dazzling debuts in the history of Spanish cinema -although I now can't find the reference for that specific comment). It is a difficult film to describe - and is probably best viewed with as little information as possible because its impact is in its otherworldly strangeness - but reduced to a basic outline, it starts with the disappearance of a child and then incorporates the stories of five women (Eva Llorach, Victoria Radonic, Ángela Villar, Rocío León, Ángela Boix) whose lives connect with Diamond Flash (Miquel Insua), a mysterious masked man. It is something of a cliché to describe a decidedly non-mainstream film as Lynchian, but Lynch's Lost Highway is the closest comparison I can make to the experience of watching the film; it is unsettling because you genuinely do not know where you are being taken. I watched it on Filmin but will buy the DVD in the New Year so that I can rewatch it and attempt to write something more detailed.

4. Blackthorn (Mateo Gil, 2011)

Trailer (in English)

This was the first film mentioned on this blog (which is named after Gil's directorial debut), so it seems fitting that it finds a place here. You can read the standalone post I wrote about it here - I don't think I've got anything more to add to that assessment, so I'll just say that I hope it doesn't take Gil another twelve years until his next film. Oh, and it's available on DVD in the UK (it had a cinema release here).

5. Carmina o revienta (Paco León, 2012)

Trailer (no subtitles)

The third directorial debut in my top 5, and along with Diamond Flash a sign of change in the landscape of Spanish cinema -certainly in distribution patterns at the very least. Making the film with his own money, actor Paco León circumvented the restrictive distribution rules that come with public funds (namely a three-month window between theatrical and DVD releases) and harnessing the power of twitter went for a simultaneous multi-platform release that has paid dividends...and led to his memorable comment that his mother (his lead actress) had done more to combat film piracy in Spain than the Ley Sinde. But none of that would matter if the film was not up to quality -but it is. With his mother (Carmina Barrios) centre-stage as a force of nature, and his sister (María León) in support, León created a warm paean to (his) family.

Honourable mentions (in alphabetical order):

Arrugas / Wrinkles (Ignacio Ferreras, 2011), Elefante blanco / White Elephant (Pablo Trapero, 2012), Extraterrestre / Extraterrestrials (Nacho Vigalondo, 2012), Grupo 7 / Unit 7 (Alberto Rodríguez, 2012), Lobos de Arga / Attack of the Werewolves (Juan Martínez Moreno, 2012), Promoción fantasma / Ghost Graduation (Javier Ruíz Caldera, 2012).

Films from 2011* that I still need to track down:

Mientras duermes / Sleep Tight (dir. Jaume Balagueró), La voz dormida / The Sleeping Voice (dir. Benito Zambrano), Eva (dir. Kike Maíllo), Blog (dir. Elena Trapé), No tengas miedo / Don't Be Afraid (dir. Montxo Armendáriz), Cinco metros cuadrados / Five Square Metres (dir. Max Lemcke). [I've got 5 of the 6 on DVD, so I should manage to see them soon]. * 2012 films will form the basis of a separate post.

Films that don't fit the 2011/2012 criteria but that you should definitely see:

También la lluvia / Even the Rain (Iciar Bollaín, 2010), El sur / The South (Víctor Erice, 1983), Muerte de un ciclista / Death of a Cyclist (Juan Antonio Bardem, 1955), La torre de los siete jorobados / The Tower of the Seven Hunchbacks (Edgar Neville, 1944), Iberia (Carlos Saura, 2005), Pablo G. del Amo: un montador de ilusiones / Pablo G. del Amo: an editor of dreams (Diego Galán, 2006), El Productor / The Producer (Fernando Méndez-Leite, 2007).

Books of 2012:

The only book I wrote about this year was World Film Locations: Madrid, which gave bite-sized tasters of a wide range of films that utilise Madrid as a backdrop. In the second half of the year a few more Spanish cinema-related books have appeared: Manchester University Press released two more volumes in their Spanish and Latin American Filmmakers series with books on the work of Iciar Bollaín (by Isabel Santaolalla) and Alejandro Amenábar (by Barry Jordan); Wiley-Blackwell released A Companion to Spanish Cinema (edited by Jo Labanyi and Tatjana Pavlovic). At the more affordable end of the scale (that last book is an eye-watering £120), MUP released some of the earlier volumes in the series -including those on Álex de la Iglesia (by Peter Buse, Nuria Triana-Toribio and Andrew Willis) and Julio Medem (by Rob Stone)- in paperback for the reasonable price of £14.99. Hopefully the other volumes will receive the same treatment (the hardbacks are £65). I have managed to get the Bollaín book through the inter-library loan system and will attempt to do the same for the Amenábar and the Wiley-Blackwell volume in the New Year. There seem to be quite a lot of books on Spanish cinema due for release in 2013 and I'll take a look at them in a post in January.

The blog will be quiet now until January, when I will post my list of ‘Ten Spanish films from 2012 that I want to catch up with in 2013’, and ‘Ten Spanish films due to arrive in 2013’.

Feliz navidad!

Post no.100: Nadie conoce a nadie / Nobody Knows Anybody (Mateo Gil, 1999)

    So I thought it about time (what with this being my 100th post) that I take a look at the film that gives this blog its name [I have kept it as spoiler-free as possible]. As will be apparent (through previous posts), my area of research has been star studies, specifically contemporary Spanish stardom and how interactions that actors / stars have with the national (i.e. concepts of ‘Spanishness’) change over time. I had four case studies that examined the careers of actors who started working in cinema at different points in the fifteen-year period I was looking at; this made it possible to track gradual changes undergone by Spanish stardom in terms of the form and content of star images in relation to the national. That is the prism through which I first saw Nadie conoce a nadie / Nobody Knows Anybody (Mateo Gil, 1999): as a piece of the puzzle in considering these issues in relation to the career of Eduardo Noriega. In relation to the people I took as case studies, Noriega emerged in the mid-1990s when the stardom of Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz was still in ascension, and Paz Vega (the fourth of my case studies) had yet to appear. He therefore overlaps two distinct ‘groups’ (I’m deliberately avoiding the word ‘generation’) of Spanish stars from the contemporary period: that of Bardem, Cruz and Jordi Mollà, and that of Vega and the El otro lado de la cama (Emilio Martínez-Lázaro, 2002) gang, and arguably that is manifested in how his stardom and his interactions with the national share different traits with both groups. The Spanish press has constructed a star narrative for Noriega that aligns him with an illustrious predecessor, by seizing on the fact that he is from Santander and travelled to Madrid to study acting in 1992 (the key is that he is not madrileño); several profiles draw parallels between the malagueño Antonio Banderas going to Madrid and becoming a ‘chico Almodóvar’ in the 1980s and the santanderino Noriega going to Madrid and becoming a ‘chico Amenábar’ in the 1990s (Díaz-Cano 1999:16). 

The Goya Awards 2012: the winners

Jose Coronado and Enrique Urbizu

   I stayed up last night to ‘watch’ The Goya Awards 2012 through the power of twitter (a more enjoyable way to take in the results than actually watching the gala, to judge by some of the online commentary –although the spectacle of Juan Diego and Antonio Resines rapping is something I will have to catch up with). In the end, the prizes were quite evenly distributed between the five frontrunners (Blackthorn -4, Eva -3, La piel que habito -4, La voz dormida -3, No habrá paz para los malvados -6).
   The overall winner was No habrá paz para los malvados, which took the main prizes of Best Film, Director (Enrique Urbizu), Actor (Jose Coronado), and Original Screenplay (Michel Gaztambide and Enrique Urbizu), as well as Editing and Sound Mix. There were a few surprises –the awards had mainly seemed to be regarded as a battle between No habrá paz para los malvados and La piel que habito, but Blackthorn took four of the main technical prizes (including Cinematography and Production Design) and Pedro Almodóvar also missed out on Best Adapted Screenplay (which went to Arrugas, the first animated film to win in such a category). La piel que habito eventually went home with Best Actress (Elena Anaya), Best Male Newcomer (Jan Cornet –another of the surprises as it was widely expected to be won by Jose Mota for Álex de la Iglesia’s La chispa de la vida), Best Score (Alberto Iglesias), and Best Make-Up. I’ve not yet seen Eva or La voz dormida, so I cannot yet comment on the merits of Kike Maíllo winning Best New Director and Lluís Homar Best Supporting Actor for the former, or María León Best Female Newcomer and Ana Wagener Best Supporting Actress for the latter. Hopefully they will get a DVD release soon. On the other hand, I finally caught up with No habrá paz para los malvados at the weekend (post forthcoming) and can say that Coronado and Urbizu thoroughly deserve the successes that came their way.
Main category winners listed below (at some point I will add a link to the full list of winners on the Academy website, but it has been under attack and is not currently working):

Blackthorn (Mateo Gil, 2011)

Director: Mateo Gil.

Screenwriter: Miguel Barros.

Cast: Sam Shepard, Eduardo Noriega, Stephen Rea, Magaly Solier, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Padraic Delaney, Dominique McElligott.

Blackthorn was among the first films I mentioned on this blog, so it seems appropriate that as Nobody Knows Anybody approaches its first birthday (next week) that I should finally get to see the film.

   The starting point for Blackthorn (full title Blackthorn, sin destino / Blackthorn, without destiny -a reference to the Spanish title for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid -Dos hombres y un destino / Two Men and One Destiny) is the 'what if?' scenario of 'what if Butch and Sundance did not die in the shootout with the Bolivian army?' (there is evidence to suggest that that was the case). So we revisit Butch Cassidy, now with the alias James Blackthorn, after he has spent the best part of two decades breeding horses in the Bolivian mountains. I think that the location is a central part of the success of the film as it allows them to use the well-worn and cosily-familiar tropes of the Western but rework them in an unfamiliar setting; the lush green vegetation of the mountains and dazzling white of the salt flats (and the colours that come with them) are a world away from the usual dust-strewn landscapes of the traditional Western. The film is also beautifully shot: this is a film that deserves to be seen on as big a screen as possible to fully appreciate the way in which the characters are dwarfed by the vastness of the landscape. Gil has managed to make a film that feels intimate but plays out on a stage of awe-inspiring proportions.

   James Blackthorn has decided that it is time for him to return to the US; he sells his horses and empties his life savings from his bank account. But not long into his journey he is attacked by a man, Eduardo (Eduardo Noriega), who believes Blackthorn to be one of a group of men who has been pursuing him; in the ensuing scuffle Blackthorn's horse flees, taking 'my whole life' with him. When Eduardo explains that the men are pursuing him because he has robbed a local mine (he worked there as an engineer), and that he will replace Blackthorn's money if he helps him get to where he has hidden the money, Blackthorn seemingly has no option. The problem is that in the intervening years, while Blackthorn has been quietly living in isolation, the world has moved on in ways that he does not fully comprehend until it is too late; he misreads situations and people because he is still living in the past and the 'old' way of doing things. 

   Shepard makes the character his own (it probably helps that so much time is meant to have passed) and carries the film with ease. He is the only American in the cast -for financial reasons the majority of the cast had to be European. In the 'making of', Gil says that he wanted Eduardo Noriega for the role of the Spanish engineer because of the contrasting qualities of innocence and darkness that he brings, which lend the character ambiguity and put a question-mark over his trustworthiness (this is a key aspect of Noriega's star persona but it is also difficult to imagine Gil casting anyone else in the role given their history together). Stephen Rea wanders through the film almost like an escapee from a Graham Greene novel, first as a Pinkerton detective in pursuit of Butch and Sundance (there are flashbacks with different actors playing the younger Butch when he was still with Sundance) and then in the present in a kind of retirement as an Honorary Consul in a godforsaken town in the middle of nowhere. The film uses a mixture of English and Spanish in a naturalistic (and logical -the only conversations entirely in English are between Blackthorn and MacKinley (Rea), and those between Blackthorn and Eduardo switch back and forth between English and Spanish) fashion. The use of language is one of a series of contrasts that the film sets up along different themes (Bolivia / The US, the Indians / Gringos, 19th century / 20th century, and so on) and that I may revisit at some point in the future.

   Overall, this is a handsome production and a nostalgic elegy to the romantic ideals of the Old West. It was released on DVD in Spain at the start of January (and is also available in Region 1).  

Man made small by the vastness of nature (Blackthorn and Eduardo on horseback on the right of frame)

Ten Spanish Films from 2011 To See In 2012:

As I said in my 'Best of the Year'-type post before Christmas, I tend to see Spanish films the year after their initial release when they become available on DVD. Here is a selection of those that I've been reading about during the past year and hope to get my hands on in the coming months.

Blackthorn (Mateo Gil, 2011)

Cast: Sam Shepard, Eduardo Noriega, Stephen Rea, Magaly Solier.

Trailer

This appeared in my 'Spanish films to see in 2011' post last February and is an updating of the Butch Cassidy myth (effectively Butch Cassidy: the later years). Mateo Gil's directorial debut gave this blog its name -I'm (still) eagerly waiting to see his second feature film.

Blog (Elena Trapé, 2011)

Trailer

A cast of unknowns in a story (apparently based on actual events in the US) about a group of teenage girls who set out to all get pregnant at the same time. What Trapé has apparently managed to achieve is a faithful representation of the type of female friendships that during adolescence often seem a stronger bond than family ties. The unusual aspect (and the aspect that intrigues me) is that this tale of sexual awakening is represented through multiple female perspectives, and only female perspectives -there are many male coming-of-age films, but few female ones.  

Catalunya über alles! (Ramon Térmens, 2011)

Trailer

This won the Special Jury Prize at the Málaga Spanish Film Festival in 2011 and I saw much praise of it on twitter at around the same time. It has three stories with overlapping characters that take place in the same village. Beyond that, I only know the scarcest of details......but I'm intrigued. 

Cinco metros cuadrados / Five Square Metres (Max Lemcke, 2011)

Cast: Fernando Tejero, Malena Alterio, Jorge Bosch.

Trailer

Another winner from the 2011 Málaga Spanish Film Festival: Best Film, Best Actor (Tejero), Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Bosch), and the Critic's Award. Tejero and (to a lesser extent) Alterio are best known for comedic roles but this is a dramatic film set against the Spanish housing crisis. I like it when actors play against 'type', so that alone would be enough to interest me, but the film as a whole has also won a lot of praise. 

Crebinsky (Enrique Otero, 2011)

This seems to have only had a limited release outside of film festivals so far (yet again, it was in dispatches from Málaga last year that I first heard mention of it). Set in 1944, the brothers Crebinsky and their cow live on the Galician coast after being washed away from their village by a flood. Cut off from the world around them they are unaware of the military goings-on in the vicinity, and create their own magic-realist world. The trailer looks a bit like a cross between the work of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Monty Python.

La voz dormida / The Sleeping Voice (Benito Zambrano, 2011)

Cast: María León, Inma Cuesta, Marc Clotet, Daniel Holguín.

Trailer

Madrid, 1940. The story of female political prisoners in the post-(Civil)War period, focusing on the case of Hortensia (Cuesta), pregnant and condemned to death, and the efforts of her sister Pepita (León) to free her. It has been gathering award attention since it debuted at the San Sebastián Film Festival in September, where María León won Best Actress.

Mientras duermes / Sleep Tight (Jaume Balagueró, 2011)

Cast: Luis Tosar, Marta Etura, Alberto San Juan, Petra Martínez

Thriller. Tosar plays a malevolent caretaker of a block of flats who decides to take out his dissatisfactions on the inhabitants of the building. I've deliberately avoided reading too much about it, but the trailer looks brilliant. I think that there's a strong chance that it will get a UK release.

No controles (Borja Cobeaga, 2011)

Cast: Unax Ugalde, Alexandra Jiménez, Julián López, Secun de la Rosa, Miguel Ángel Muñoz.

Trailer

Because Cobeaga's first film, Pagafantas (2009), an anthropological take on rejection, made me cry with laughter. 

No habrá paz para los malvados / No Rest for the Wicked (Enrique Urbizu, 2011)

Cast: José Coronado, Julio Perillán, Karim El-Kerem, Helena Miquel.

Trailer

Thriller. This would have been on my list of 'films to see in 2011' in my post last February had I known that Urbizu had a new film on the way. Connoisseurs of the thriller genre take note: a Master is back at work. I'm really excited to see this tale of terrorism, drugs, and police corruption, especially as it reunites the director with José Coronado (apparently on barnstorming form) for the third time.

No tengas miedo (Montxo Armendáriz, 2011)

Cast: Michelle Jenner, Belén Rueda, Lluís Homar.

Trailer

I missed watching this when it was available on Filmin for a limited period, in part because the subject matter (child abuse) put me off. However, the film continues to be mentioned as a strong awards contender, not least for Michelle Jenner's performance, so I will make sure to catch up with it soon.