Anatomy of a scene: La madre muerta (00:21:12-00:23:11)

Ismael has one of those days where everything goes wrong

This is the start of what will be an occasional feature on the blog. I won't do it for every film I look at, but some films have a scene that just perfectly captures the sensibility and / or themes of the film as a whole. In the case of La madre muerta, I could have chosen the ‘Aguadilu’ scene because that is also a good illustration of the tone of the film and the fine line that it walks between humour and uneasiness. However I’ve chosen this one because a) it is darkly funny, and b) it is a brilliant set piece. Plus it occurs only twenty minutes into the film, so I can’t be accused of spoiling the plot. Juanma Bajo Ulloa considers it to be one of the best sequences in the film because of how it creates a sensation of fear (something is going to happen to the grandmother, but we don’t know exactly what) and combines both suspense and absurd humour.

The story so far: The prologue of the film sees Ismael (Karra Elejalde) shoot and kill a woman who disturbs him during a burglary, and ends with him pointing his shotgun at the head of the woman’s small daughter. Fifteen years later, Ismael spots the girl (Leire -now grown up and played by Ana Álvarez) in the street with her grandmother. Despite the fact that she is mute, and has the mental age of a three-year-old, he becomes convinced that she recognises him and could identify him to the police. As a result, Ismael announces to his girlfriend that he plans to kidnap and kill Leire. In the lead up to this scene, we have seen Ismael tail Leire and her grandmother as they make their way home from the clinic where Leire spends her days. He casually follows them into their apartment block, and then it cuts to….

Links roundup, 10th March -mainly about Ángel Sala

    The main story of the week is that of Ángel Sala, director of the Sitges Film Festival, who was reported to the Barcelona authorities and accused of exhibiting child pornography, on the basis that A Serbian Film (the ‘plot’ of which includes the rape of a baby and of a five-year-old child) was screened at the Sitges Film Festival last October. This has predictably caused uproar and prompted accusations of censorship, and expressions of disbelief that the judiciary cannot tell the difference between fiction and reality (although, as I understand it, Spanish law does not differentiate between ‘fiction’ and ‘reality’ in terms of images of this kind, and the specific article of the penal code (189.7, according to El País) covers the production, selling, distribution, exhibiting, or facilitating of such images).
     Leaving aside the issue of censorship for one moment, the main point of absurdity seems to be that the person who is facing a prison sentence of three to twelve months (and Sala was formally charged on Wednesday 9th March), is someone who was not directly involved in the making of the film –the letter of support signed by the directors of other Spanish film festivals notes their surprise (and, no doubt, alarm) that it is a cultural programmer who is being pursued, rather than anyone who can even theoretically be held responsible for the film’s content. I hold no brief for A Serbian Film –given what I have read about it (Empire's review –yes, it was released in the UK, although cut by the BBFC- is here), I have no desire to see it. But I am an adult and am capable of making that decision for myself. After Sala was charged on Wednesday, the Sitges Film Festival released a statement making clear: a) their continued support for their director, b) that the film is a work of fiction, and c) that strict precautions were taken to ensure that only adults attended the (one) screening of the film. We can only wait to see what happens next. In the meantime, an online petition in support of Ángel Sala has been started.

Other news-

The on-going story of who will take over from Álex de la Iglesia as President of the Spanish Academy of the Arts and Cinematographic Sciences: last week director Bigas Luna threw his hat into the ring. However the elections are for a team (President and two Vice-Presidents) rather than just a President, so Bigas Luna had been looking for two other people to serve with him. He had said that he wanted someone from the acting community and someone from the production side of filmmaking. Earlier this week it was announced that actress Leonor Watling (Hable con ella / Talk to Her (Almodóvar, 2002), and perhaps more pertinently, Son de mar / Sound of the Sea (Bigas Luna, 2001)) and production manager / line producer Yousaf Bokhari (Balada triste de trompeta (de la Iglesia, 2010)) will stand as the two Vice-Presidents in collaboration with Bigas Luna. As yet no other candidates / teams have announced that they intend to run.

La madre muerta / The Dead Mother (Bajo Ulloa, 1993)

This post has been moved to my new blog - you can find it here.

Pa negre / Black Bread (2010)

Director: Agustí Villaronga
Screenwriter: Agustí Villaronga, based on the book by Emili Teixidor
Cast: Francesc Colomer, Marina Comas, Nora Navas, Roger Casamajor, Laia Marull, Eduard Fernández, Sergi López.
Availability: the film is due out on DVD (with optional English subtitles) in Spain in March, and is currently available on the streaming site Filmin, here.

‘The silent knowledge of unquiet graves necessarily produced a devastating schism between public and private memory in Spain’ –Helen Graham (2005: 137)

The 25th Goya Awards: the winners

At the moment the official website for the Goyas seems to be inaccessible -when I'm able to get onto it, I'll add some links here. In the meantime -
El País has the full list of winners here
Fotogramas have photogalleries of the red carpet, the show, the winners, and video footage.
Pa negre was the big winner, winning 9 Goyas out of 14 nominations including Best Film, Best Director, and 4 of the acting categories. The other frontrunners fared less well –También la lluvia (13 nominations) picked up 3 (Supporting Actor, Music, and Production Direction), as did Buried (Sound, Editing, Original Screenplay), and Balada triste de trompeta won 2 of its 15 categories (Make-Up and Special Effects).
The main categories were as follows:

Álex de la Iglesia’s Goya speech, 13th February 2011:

Someone has probably already translated this somewhere, and Alt Film Guide has a condensed version here, but this is my translation based on the transcript that El País put online almost immediately after the speech was given (they also have video). Please let me know if there are any errors (there were a couple of phrases I was unsure of).

Resources: where to buy / watch / read about Spanish cinema

Films and DVDs –
      The UK distribution of Spanish films on DVD has improved in the last few years, and there are a number of options in terms of buying them within the UK. Amazon UK currently has quite a lot of Spanish DVDs for under £5 (go into DVD > World Cinema > Spanish) and Moviemail also often have good offers on foreign language cinema. However there are a lot of Spanish films that don’t get released over here but are released in Spain with optional English subtitles (this is more true of contemporary films than older classics, but there is nonetheless a wide range available with subtitle options). If you’re unsure about ordering from Spain, there are quite a lot of Spanish sellers selling Spanish DVDs on ebay UK (DVDs > Foreign Language > Spanish) –the prices sometimes seem a little steep but consider that they quite often offer free postage and have factored that into their asking price (standard postage for one DVD being sent from Spain to the UK seems to be around 12€). I have ordered DVDs through ebay in this way and have never had any problem.