Random Viewing: Catch-Up Edition, part 2

In this edition, two films that received 'honourable mentions' in my end of year post.
     Extraterrestre / Extraterrestrial (Nacho Vigalondo, 2012) was mentioned in the first post on this blog almost two years ago - it seems to have taken an absolute age for me to manage to see it (I watched it on Filmin and then bought the DVD, which has optional subtitles, from Spain). It's quite different to Los cronocrímenes / Timecrimes (Nacho Vigalondo, 2007) - that's not a negative, just a warning if you were expecting something in a similar vein as it threw me a bit on first viewing (it wasn't an issue with the second viewing). Extraterrestre is a warmhearted comedy, and despite the title is actually a romcom with a possible alien invasion as a backdrop, rather than an alien invasion film with a romantic subplot. Julio (Julián Villagrán) wakes up in Julia's (Michelle Jenner) apartment (and bed), unable to remember much of the night before. As they go through an awkward morning-after conversation that sees Julia not-all-that-subtly trying to get Julio out of her apartment they realise that all lines of modern communication are down and no-one is on the street outside. And then they look up at the sky....  Deciding to stay in the apartment, they are soon joined by Julia's stalkerish neighbour, Ángel (Carlos Areces) (staring daggers at interloper Julio), and Julia's boyfriend, Carlos (Raúl Cimas) (friendly towards Julio and keen to drop into survivalist mode to take on the invaders). This sets up two tensions: the slightly more serious (although occasionally outlandish) attempts by Julia to keep Carlos in the dark as the attraction between her and Julio becomes more palpable; and the more comedic attempts to keep Ángel quiet after Julio inadvertently spills the beans to him (the exchange of looks between Jenner, Villagrán, and Areces across the dinner table in the aftermath of the revelation is a masterclass in silent comedy). It is ultimately a very sweet-natured film, the cast are all excellent (at both heartache and slapstick), and I'm now looking forward to Open Windows (Nacho Vigalondo, forthcoming). The tennis balls? You'll have to watch the film.
    Lobos de Arga (Juan Martínez Moreno, 2012) [the film has been given a UK DVD release with the title Attack of the Werewolves] is a horror-comedy with Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004) style humour and gore, but with werewolves instead of zombies, and a very personable little dog. Tomás (Gorka Otxoa) is a young writer invited to a village connected to his family to receive an award. Or at least that's what they told him. In reality, as the youngest descendant of the Mariño family, the villagers think that by sacrificing him they can end a century-long Gypsy curse and rid the village of the deadly wolfman. Tomás has only his dog, his childhood friend (Carlos Areces, again), his literary agent (Secun de la Rosa), and his grandmother (Mabel Rivera) to help him -as the title suggests, more than one werewolf is soon at play and mayhem ensues. Again, this is a very sweet-natured and funny film with an excellent cast and well-written characters. I will buy the DVD at some point as I'm sure that some of the jokes passed me by (I watched it on Filmin without subs - although it would appear that sheep-shagging jokes in films with a rural setting are pretty much universal).
Both films are recommended.

Random Viewing: Catch-Up Edition, part 1

   My posting will still be irregular in the coming months but I thought that I'd better attempt to do some sort of catch-up with the films I watched towards the end of the year - as De tu ventana a la mía and Diamond Flash were in my end-of-year top 5, they will get standalone posts at some point in the future, but the others will appear in Random Viewing posts.

    So, to the films. El Sur / The South (Víctor Erice, 1983) was the film that I hit a bit of a stumbling block with back in October. Sometimes I find myself face-to-face with a classic but with very little to say. As with Erice's El espíritu de la colmena / The Spirit of the Beehive, the film focuses on the POV of a child, in this case Estrella (played by Sonsoles Aranguren as a child, and future-director Iciar Bollaín as a teenager). Estrella is looking back on the events of her childhood (she narrates from the position of adulthood), specifically her relationship with her father (Omero Antonutti), so we get both a sense of how she saw things at the time and also how she views them with the benefit of hindsight - although it is also key that she admits early on in the narration to invention; what we are seeing is a mixture of memory and story-telling. But there are parts of her father's story that she doesn't know about / understand, and which are connected to his life (prior to her birth) in the South and a woman by the name of Irene Rios (Aurore Clément). I will point you in the direction of an article by Jo Evans (HT @drsolas on twitter), as I'm still quite stumped for words. The film is somewhat notorious in Spain because of the controversy over the ending - it was originally intended to be a three-part drama for TV but ended up as a 94 minute film - the plug was pulled by the producer, Elías Querejeta, part way through filming with (according to Erice) the understanding that the film would be 'completed' later (although the events surrounding the interruption of filming are still disputed -see below). As it was, when the 'first part' was released it was hailed as a masterpiece and filming never resumed - to this day, Erice insists that the film is only half finished. I think that the film 'works' at its current length, but it also ends at a point in the story where new narrative avenues are opening up (Estrella is about to travel to the South to find out more about her father). It is beautifully photographed by José Luis Alcaine - like a painting come to life in some of the interior scenes. The 2012 Spanish edition on DVD (and presumably on the blu-ray as well) comes with optional English subtitles and is available from Spanish sites (see the links in the right-hand sidebar) for around 7€ (I'm pointing this out because people are selling them for £20 on Amazon UK, which is quite a mark up).

   The controversy surrounding the making of El Sur brings me to the next film, the documentary El Productor / The Producer (Fernando Méndez-Leite, 2007), about the career of Elías Querejeta, one of Spain's most prolific producers and a key figure in the history of Spanish cinema. I had actually seen this before but watched it again to refresh my memory about what was said about El Sur (nothing clear-cut, as it turns out -the talking heads interviewed give a variety of accounts). Querejeta has worked through several different eras, including Francoism and state censorship (of the game of wits he played with the censors, Querejeta characterises his strategy as manipulation rather than capitulation - he usually cleverly got his way) and Agustín Almodóvar suggests that Querejeta's continued success and enduring reputation as someone with an eye for talent is down to his ability to adapt with social change and keep in step with the times. The documentary covers his career to date but focuses mainly on his collaborations in the 1960s and 1970s with Erice (various anecdotes about the making of El espíritu de la colmena) and Carlos Saura (the latter parted company with Querejeta around the time of Carmen (1983), but only because they were wanting to go in different directions and not because of a falling out (a rare case of 'artistic differences' being just that) - they are about to work together again). But also it also looks at the idea that there is 'the Querejeta stamp' on projects he produces, as he is very much a hands-on collaborator - there are varying accounts from the many directors interviewed as to just how they viewed that 'collaboration'. I will probably be revisiting the documentary again as I am going to have some sort of 'project' surrounding Saura's films and there's also this book on Querejeta's films, which looks interesting. 

Not-Entirely-Random Viewing: Carlos Saura edition

Clockwise from top left: Sevillanas (1992), Flamenco (1995),  Iberia (2005), Fados (2007).

    I mentioned a few posts back that I'm considering doing another month-long project on a Spanish filmmaker, in the way that I did 'Almodóvar Month' last August. Saura is the filmmaker I'm considering writing about, mainly because I've realised that I've seen surprisingly few of his films. Is say 'surprisingly' because of the longevity of his career (he directed his first feature, Los golfos / The Delinquents, in 1960 and has now directed more than forty or so films to date), a number of his films are considered key works in Spanish cinema (most notably La caza / The Hunt (1966) and Cría cuervos / Raise Ravens (1976)), and also because he is one of the few Spanish directors whose name has some sort of cachet outside of Spain. Despite the fact that a lot of his films were reissued on DVD only a few years ago, they are now difficult to come by and a significant number are simply unavailable (strangely (to my mind, at least) this includes two films he made with Antonio Banderas). Looking at the availability of DVDs and titles that are currently supported by VOD platforms (quite a few of Saura's films are available at Filmotech), I think I can get access to around 26 of his films -I am slowly acquiring the DVDs that are available at a reasonable price (I recently broke my own rule about how much one should pay for a DVD and ended up getting burnt by what appears to be a counterfeit in the process -lesson learned), so we'll see how I go. His films will probably continue to appear in the Random Viewing thread until I make up my mind as to whether or not to make a project of it or not -I may hold off and do some sort of retrospective when his next film, 33 días / 33 Days (about Picasso (Antonio Banderas) and the painting of Guernica), gets released. The number of his films that revolve around music and dance is also a bit off-putting for me, given how little I know about those elements. But they are integral to his career as a filmmaker, so I'll have to give that some thought as well.
Ordinarily, if I'm planning some sort of retrospective, I work through the films chronologically. But while looking for trailers of the films (to give me some sort of idea of them) on youtube, I discovered that Sevillanas (1992) and Flamenco (1995) were on there in their entirety; as they're both currently OOP, I decided to watch them first before they disappeared. Iberia (2005) is available at Filmin and I bought Fados (2007) on DVD from amazon.es. Having watched Flamenco Flamenco (2010) last year I knew what to expect in terms of format, but one can also see a progression in terms of filming style across these four films.
    Although each varies in emphasis in terms of the balance between dance and song / music, performance is centre stage; there is no 'narrative' as such in these films, but rather a series of performances that hang together as a cohesive whole due to their shared roots. All four films take place in cavernous, warehouse-like spaces that are divided up with screens and mirrors. The screens change between being opaque and transparent, either through use of lighting or the projection of images, creating a play of shadows and / or silhouettes, light and colour, or sometimes a trompe l'oeil effect, depending on the atmosphere required by the particular performance being showcased (the trailers for Iberia and Fados show this more clearly than I am able to describe). When the projection of images onto the screens include the dancers actually performing in the sequence, a kaleidoscope-like effect of duplication and mirroring takes place, often disappearing into infinity on the screen. Likewise, there are also some The Lady from Shanghai-esque effects using the mirrors. Obviously sound is also important but I feel under-qualified to discuss that side of it -although it is a shame that the soundtracks don't seem to be readily available here as some of the music is of a goosebump-inducing quality. In Flamenco Flamenco Saura names the performers (and the title of the song / performance) in a subtitle at the start of each sequence, but in these earlier films we just get the titles -although I recognised some of the names in the opening credits, I generally had to wait until the closing credits to work out who sang / danced what.
I don't really have anything else to say about these films at the moment, but if I take on the project, I'll revisit them (and do some research).

   The blog will be quiet for the next couple of weeks, but once we get into September my work situation will revert back to what it was this time last year and I should be able to start posting more regularly again and with a bit more variety in content.

Random Viewing: Classic Edition

   This blog concentrates on cinema from the 1990s onwards, but I've recently been watching a series of older films and thought that I may as well include them in the Random Viewing thread.

   First up is La escopeta nacional / The National Shotgun (Luis García Berlanga, 1978). Berlanga is a key figure in Spanish cinema (and a strong influence over a range of filmmakers of different generations) but seemingly little-known outside of Spain (in terms of the UK, his films have not been released here). I had previously seen one of his earliest films, ¡Bienvenido, Mister Marshall! / Welcome, Mister Marshall! (1952), which I enjoyed very much, and I have copies of two of his other classics (Plácido (1961) and El verdugo / The Executioner (1963) (not watched yet)) but it's quite difficult to get hold of his other films. I have discovered that some of them are available to stream (without subtitles) at Filmotech, so I'm going to work my way through them. La escopeta nacional is the first part in a comedic trilogy (followed by Patrimonio nacional / National Heritage (1980) and Nacional III / National III (1982)). This first part is set during the dying days of the Franco regime and is a send-up of the bourgeoisie at play; a hunt (a recurring motif in Spanish cinema, in part because it was one of Franco's past-times) on the estate of a somewhat unhinged aristocratic family is the backdrop for familial backstabbing, political power plays and various other grotesqueries, seen through the eyes of a Catalan businessman (José Sazatornil) who just wants to make the connections to enable him to develop a new kind of door-entry intercom. One of Berlanga's cinematic traits is the use of large ensembles (with the attendant overlapping dialogue) and there is a brilliant range of faces onscreen here, including José Luis López Vázquez, Luis Escobar, Amparo Soler Leal, Luis Ciges, and a very young-looking Chus Lampreave (a recurrent figure in Almodóvar's films). I imagine that many references went over my head as I'm not overly familiar with Spanish society of this period, but the broader references and skewering of the hypocrisies of authority hit their target. Expect the next two parts of the trilogy to make an appearance on here in the future.

   Berlanga's first feature (Esa pareja feliz / This Happy Couple (1951)) was co-directed with Juan Antonio Bardem -and it was one of Bardem's key films that I watched next. Muerte de un ciclista / Death of a Cyclist (1955) opens with the titular death as a couple hit a cyclist while driving in the countryside. Fatally, they decide not to offer assistance (the cyclist is still alive when they stop) and flee the scene as they (María José -played by Lucia Bosé- and Juan -Alberto Closas) are having an affair and do not want to expose their relationship. The event impacts on them in the same way -it reveals their true natures- but with different results: Juan, a university professor, is tortured by guilt and finding the political idealism of his youth reawakened decides that the 'right thing' would be turn themselves in; but the shallowness of María José is revealed as it becomes apparent that she will protect her social status (she is married to an important man) at all costs and shows very little concern about the life that she ended (she was driving). Throw in a blackmailer (played with a wonderful Peter Lorre-esque sliminess by Carlos Casaravilla), who may know less than than he insinuates to María José but is close enough to her husband to cause problems, and the tension amps up to Hitchcockian proportions. The film is an effective suspense drama (will the police catch them? will their affair be exposed? how will they deal with the blackmail?) but Bardem also manages to make social commentary by highlighting the gap between rich and poor without turning the film into a political treatise. Muerte de un ciclista has received the Criterion treatment in the US but predictably is unavailable in the UK -although there does seem to be a region 2 Spanish disc. I watched it on Filmotech and it is well-worth seeking out. It is beautifully-shot and certain scenes are strikingly (and memorably) composed. I also liked the ambiguity of the final image. 

From the opening sequence of Muerte de un ciclista

Not-So-Random-Viewing: Álex de la Iglesia Edition

Clockwise from top left: Balada triste de trompeta / The Last Circus (Álex de la Iglesia, 2010), 800 balas / 800 Bullets (Álex de la Iglesia, 2002), The Oxford Murders (Álex de la Iglesia, 2008), El día de la bestia / Day of the Beast (Álex de la Iglesia, 1995).

   Balada triste de trompeta featured in one of my first posts on this blog as one of the films from last year that I most wanted to catch up with in 2011. I'm going to write a standalone post about the film in (hopefully) January -I need to watch it again before attempting to write anything of any decent length and I won't have the time until after Christmas. [I know I quite often say that and things still haven't materialised, but Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto and a joint post about Los lunes al sol and Biutiful are still percolating in my brain, honest].
   However, on first impressions it strikes me as a culmination of de la Iglesia's work to date and it will be interesting to see where he has gone with his next film, La chispa de la vida (due for release in Spain in January); Balada triste de trompeta almost feels like an end point in terms of certain themes that recur across the director's work. It is unmistakably 'an Álex de la Iglesia film' in terms of the vividness and inventiveness of the imagery and an extremity of violence that takes on an almost cartoon-like quality; this is filmmaking that is by turns both exhilarating and highly disturbing. The circus is the perfect setting for the lunacy, violence, dark humour, and cruelty that run through de la Iglesia's films; given the miscreants, misfits, and malcontents who populate his films, it is almost a surprise that he hasn't set a story in this world before (although several of his films take place within an entertainment setting -a television comedy double-act in Muertos de risa and a Western sideshow spectacle in 800 balas).
   It was the sense that Balada represents a culmination of his work that made me watch the only two of his films that I hadn't seen previously: 800 balas and The Oxford Murders. 800 balas is in many ways a paean to cinema, filmmaking, and the type of films 'they don't make anymore'. The film takes place on old film sets in Almeria (the location for many Westerns filmed in the 1950s/60s, including Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy) where a former stuntman (Sancho Gracia) reenacts his glory days with a gang of reprobates as they stage a 'Western sideshow' for the dwindling number of visiting tourists. It is a warm tribute to a world that no longer exists. I had two surprises watching The Oxford Murders -1) that it was nowhere near as bad as the UK reviews had led me to believe, and 2) how little of de la Iglesia's normal visual style it contained; it was as if the tepid English sunlight had diluted his usual visual dazzling.
   Then I decided to rewatch El día de la bestia because it is my favourite of his films (and one of my favourite films, full stop) - and as it takes place on Christmas Eve it seemed appropriately festive (insofar as a film about a priest (Alex Angulo), a TV psychic / paranormal expert (Armando de Razza), and a death-metal fan (Santiago Segura) attempting to stop the birth of the Antichrist can be 'festive'). I've never understood why it isn't available in the UK (likewise his Carmen Maura-starring La comunidad (2000)) given that several of his other films are, and it currently also seems to be OOP in Spain. If you get the chance to see it, do so -it is very funny and a deeply affectionate take on the horror film.