New Book Added to List

Torres Hortelano, L.J. (ed.) (2011) - Directory of World Cinema: Spain, Bristol: Intellect. ISBN: 9781841504636

This book forms part of a relatively new series from Intellect looking at various world cinemas. The aim is that future volumes will be added to each country's directory every couple of years (this volume makes tentative references to possible subjects to be included in future editions). On the back cover it says: 'Each volume of the directory will take the form of a collection of reviews, longer essay, and research resources, accompanied by film stills highlighting significant films and players.'

The book is divided into different sections encompassing focusses on specific directors, locations, film festivals, cultural background, and genres. The genres (some of which are specific to Spain) form the backbone of the directory with the ten different genre sections including an essay and then reviews of ten films that fall within that genre (although this is sometimes 'loosely' / bizarrely interpreted -for example, how did Cesc Gay's En la ciudad come to be classified as 'Experimental Documentary'?). Although 100 films are included, the editor is very clear in saying that this is not a '100 Best Spanish Films' enterprise, but rather the intention is to give a flavour of the variety within Spanish cinema. Future volumes would look at different genres. One could argue about the omissions (I know that it is often said that Almodóvar overshadows everyone else, but to only include one Almodóvar film feels an overcorrection too far in the other direction -especially when other directors have multiple films included. Plus, the Torrente phenomenon deserves some coverage) but, as this is seen as a project that will develop over time, perhaps those absences will be addressed in the future ('films about the Civil War' is a category that is mentioned for inclusion in the possible second volume).

This is more a book to dip in and out of rather than to read cover to cover (I haven't read all of it yet), but it's probably a good starting point for someone who is interested in watching Spanish films but doesn't know where to begin. As is often the case with books with multiple contributors (70, in this case), the style and quality of the writing is variable (some of the reviews lean towards the descriptive rather than the analytical, others seem to have suffered in translation), but an interesting aspect to the collection of contributors is how many of them are Spanish; it is relatively rare to see Spanish views on Spanish cinema published in English. Overall, a good introduction to the variety that Spanish cinema has to offer, but more of a starting point for further investigation than a one-stop-shop.

The table of contents is below, and because the impetus behind my starting the book lists was my frustration with being unable to find out what films are covered in a particular book, I'm going to include the (original) film titles of those reviewed in the various sections (but not the contributor names because of the vast number).

Introduction by the Editor

Film of the Year: Biutiful

Interview with Jaime Rosales

Industry Spotlight: Spanish Film Production

Cultural Crossover

-Influence of European Avant-garde

-Representations of Violence

-Don Quixote Visual Ridings

Festival Focus

-Semana de Cine Experimental de Madrid / Experimental Film Week of Madrid

Film Location: Madrid

Directors:

-Edgar Neville

-Fernando Fernán-Gómez

-Carlos Saura

-Victor Erice

-Pedro Almodóvar

Auteur Melodrama / Melodrama de autor

-Essay

-Reviews (Jamón, jamón (Bigas Luna, 1992), Todo sobre mi madre (Almodóvar, 1999), Cielo negro (Mur Oti, 1951), Caótica Ana (Medem, 2007), La vida mancha (Urbizu, 2003), My Life Without Me (Coixet, 2003), La ardilla roja (Medem, 1993), The Secret Life of Words (Coixet, 2005), Things I Never Told You (Coixet, 1996), Las voces de la noche (García Ruiz, 2003)).

Grotesque Comedy / Esperpento

-Essay

-Reviews (Amanece, que no es poco (Cuerda, 1988), Atraco a las tres (Forqué, 1962), Belle epoque (Trueba, 1992), El verdugo (García Berlanga, 1963), El milagro de P Tinto (Fesser, 1998), La escopeta nacional (García Berlanga, 1978), Plácido (García Berlanga, 1961), La linea del cielo (Colomo, 1983), El extraño viaje (Fernán-Gómez, 1964), Los tramposos (Lazaga, 1959)).

Iberian Drama

-Essay

-Reviews (Solas (Zambrano, 1999), Alas de mariposa (Bajo Ulloa, 1991), En la ciudad sin límites (Hernández, 2002), Flores del otro mundo (Bollaín, 1999), La casa de Bernarda Alba (Camus, 1987), La caza (Saura, 1965), Los lunes al sol (León de Aranoa, 2002), Poniente (Gutiérrez, 2002), La soledad (Rosales, 2007), Viridiana (Buñuel, 1961)).

Musical (But Not Only Flamenco...)

-Essay

-Reviews (¡Ay, Carmela! (Saura, 1990), Morena clara (Rey, 1936), Flamenco (Saura, 1995), La niña de tus ojos (Trueba, 1998), Pena, penita, pena (Morayta, 1953), El otro lado de la cama (Martínez Lázaro, 2002), Shirley Temple Story (Padrós, 1976), Canciones para después de una guerra (Patino, 1976), Embrujo (Serrano de Osma, 1946)).

Period Films / De época

-Essay

-Reviews (Alatriste (Díaz Yanes, 2006), Bocage (Leitão de Barros, 1936), Vacas (Medem, 1992), El perro del hortelano (Miró, 1996), Honor de cavalleria (Serra, 2006), Los últimos de Filipinas (Román, 1945), Locura de amor (Orduña, 1948), Nuestra Señora de Fátima (Gil, 1951), Sin novedad en el Alcázar (Genina, 1940), You Are the One (Una historia de entonces) (Garci, 2000)).

Dictatorship Forgotten Cinema

-Essay

-Reviews (Un hombre va por el camino (Mur Oti, 1949), Carmen fra i rossi (Neville, 1939), Surcos (Nieves Conde, 1951), La vida en un hilo (Neville, 1945), Calle Mayor (Bardem, 1956), Marcelino pan y vino (Vajda, 1955), El clavo (Gil, 1944), Historias de la radio (Sáenz de Heredia, 1955), El espíritu de la colmena (Erice, 1973), Vida en sombras (Llobet Gracia, 1948)).

The Transition to Democracy Cinema / Cine de la Transición

-Essay

-Reviews (El desencanto (Chávarri, 1976), El bosque animado (Cuerda, 1987), Los santos inocentes (Camus, 1984), La vieja memoria (Camino, 1979), Furtivos (Borau, 1975), Arrebato (Zulueta, 1979), Los restos del naufragio (Franco, 1978), 7 días de enero (Bardem, 1979), Habla, mudita (Gutiérrez Aragón, 1973), El viaje a ninguna parte (Fernán-Gómez, 1986)).

Crime and Thriller

-Essay

-Reviews (Angustia (Bigas Luna, 1987), Bilbao (Bigas Luna, 1978), Domingo de carnaval (Neville, 1945), Muerte de un ciclista (Bardem, 1955), El cebo (Vajda, 1958), Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto (Díaz Yanes, 1995), Los peces rojos (Nieves Conde, 1955), Soldados de Salamina (Trueba, 2003), Tesis (Amenábar, 1996), Los cronocrímenes (Vigalondo, 2007)).

Fantasy and Horror

-Essay

-Reviews (El día de la bestia (de la Iglesia, 1995), El espinazo del diablo (del Toro, 2001), La Residencia (Ibáñez Serrador, 1969), Acción mutante (de la Iglesia, 1993), El orfanato (Bayona, 2007), The Others (Amenábar, 2001), El laberinto del fauno (del Toro, 2006), La cabina (Mercero, 1972), [Rec] (Balagueró and Plaza, 2007), La torre de los siete jorobados (Neville, 1944)).

Experimental Documentary

-Essay

-Reviews (El cant dels ocells (Serra, 2008), Contactos (Viota, 1970), El sol del membrillo (Erice, 1992), En la ciudad (Gay, 2003), Las Hurdes. Tierra sin pan (Buñuel, 1933), Die stille vor Bach (Portabella, 2007), Tren de sombras: El espectro de Le Thuit (Guerín, 1997), Umbracle (Portabella, 1972), Un chien andalou (Buñuel, 1929), Aguaespejo granadino (Val de Omar, 1953-1955)).

Recommended Reading

Spanish Cinema Online

Notes on Contributors

Glossary

Filmography

The book has been added to the Books on Spanish Cinema, Part Two post.

….and Almodóvar Month ends

So, the 31 days of Pedro celebration are now over, and all eighteen films have featured in some way on the blog. It’s a shame that I wasn’t overly enamoured with film no.18, but that’s the way it goes sometimes and I’ll be the first in line again when no.19 arrives. 

My original plan for Almodóvar Month had been to write about my ten favourite Almodóvar films but I had to change that when the release date moved from November to August. I may write longer posts on some those films in the future (three of them had longer posts this month), but I’ve realised that I’ve not actually said what my ten favourites are –so, as the final post of Nobody Knows Anybody’s Almodóvar Month, here is my personal top ten (the links either take you to my short summary or the longer post)

• 1. Talk to Her
• = Volver
• 3. Dark Habits
• 4. Bad Education
• 5. All About My Mother
• = High Heels
• = Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
• 8. Live Flesh
• 9. What Have I Done To Deserve This?
• 10. Law of Desire

La piel que habito / The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar, 2011)

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenplay: Pedro Almodóvar and Agustín Almodóvar, based on the novel Mygale (a.k.a. Tarantula) by Thierry Jonquet.

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet, Blanca Suárez, Roberto Álamo, Eduard Fernández, Susi Sánchez, Bárbara Lennie, Fernando Cayo, José Luis Gómez.

Short version: A rich and macabre body-horror with touches of melodrama, well executed, with excellent performances, but not my cup of tea.

WARNING: SPOILERS ARE INCLUDED -THE FILM IS BEST VIEWED WITHOUT PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

My 5 Favourite Almodóvar Film Posters

I should be seeing La piel que habito / The Skin I Live In over the weekend, with a post to follow at the start of the next week. In the meantime, here are my five favourite posters for Almodóvar films.

Designer: Juan Gatti 

I’ve got the UK Quad poster version of this (i.e. landscape rather than portrait –with the picture on one side and the wording on the other) on my wall. Also look for the Japanese mini poster (chirashi) version, which has Cruz emerging from a bouquet of flowers. It’s a really bold poster and I like how it uses the colour that Almodóvar is most associated with (red) and integrates the pattern from one of Raimunda’s outfits (I think it was either Peter Bradshaw or Jonathan Romney who said that on the basis of this film, Cruz has to be one of the few women in the world who could wear anything that Primark could possibly throw at her). In my longer post about the film I suggest that Volver is kind of an old-fashioned ‘star vehicle’ for Penélope Cruz –it is to an extent built around her existing star image- and her centrality on the poster (and to my knowledge her image was the only one that appeared in promotional materials, although I could be wrong) supports that.

Designer: Juan Gatti

Another Gatti design, another poster that I have on my wall (although not full size). There are several different posters for Women on the Verge but this is my favourite –it captures several things about the film: its overall stylised nature (which starts in the opening credits (also designed by Gatti –the images on the poster are in the credit sequence)), the prominence of primary colours in the set design, and that although there is a central character (Pepa –Carmen Maura), there is more than one woman in the film who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Designer: Iván Zulueta

The poster contains several elements from the film. Most obviously the tiger that the nuns keep in the garden of the convent, but here the tiger is standing for the Mother Superior (played by Julieta Serrano). Note that Yolanda (Cristina Pascual), wearing the dress that she’s wearing when she arrives at the convent, is becoming ensnared in the tiger’s claws, an indication that she risks being devoured by the Mother Superior if she is not careful. But also note that the tiger’s claws are scratching the habit –the Mother Superior is damaging herself, and her behaviour is self-destructive. Apart from the nun’s habit, the poster also contains the symbol of this particular Order (the Convent of the Humiliated Redeemers) –but instead of a heart surrounded by flames, instead it is pierced by syringes, which partly refers to what the nuns believe their mission is (the rescue ‘fallen’ girls, drug addicts seemingly prominent among them), but is also a reference the Mother Superior’s own addictions.

Designer: Juan Gatti

I just like the Saul Bass-ness of this one. It doesn’t work as well in the UK version because they try to fit ‘Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!’ into the same space as ‘Átame!’.

Designer: Juan Gatti

I like the simplicity of this design, which again makes use of the colour red (the dominant colour within the film itself). The circle can be read in many ways –it puts the boy at the centre of a target (the priest pursues him), but it could also be a spotlight (pointing to the elements of ‘performance’ that surround Ignacio). The crossed arms also signal determination –something that can certainly be ascribed to Ignacio in his many different incarnations.

Los abrazos rotos / Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodóvar, 2009)

Penélope Cruz and Lluís Homar

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Penélope Cruz, Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo, Tamar Novas, Rubén Ochandiano, José Luis Gómez, Ángela Molina.

Synopsis: Told in flashback, as a man reminisces about meeting the love of his life, Broken Embraces tells the story of the production of a film fourteen years earlier, the love affair between the director and the lead actress, and the punishments inflicted on the actress by her financier husband. The film was hacked to pieces under the financier's influence, but a greater tragedy than bad reviews awaited the couple...

I was initially disappointed when I saw this film, at least in part because I’d hyped it up in my own mind (I seriously need to calm down about La piel que habito, or it’ll happen again). My reaction after my first viewing was that it unravels, or deflates, about three-quarters of the way through when Judit (Portillo), has to fill in the blanks to what we have seen in flashback as Mateo / Harry (Homar) recounted the story of his last film as a director to Diego (Novas). I felt that too much exposition was done in that one scene and it also seemed jarring that we were being told rather shown what happened. But watching it again now, that scene does not seem as jarring, although I do still think that the film just kind of tails off at the end. However, even with those ‘doubts’ in mind, the film is still a powerful and heartfelt meditation on cinema and filmmaking; the film stands as a love letter to cinema, and to his (then) current muse, Penélope Cruz. The scenes where Mateo meets Lena (Cruz) for the first time and then sets about turning her into his lead actress clearly demonstrate why Cruz is a star -the camera loves her as much as Pedro does. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that the ‘deflation’ (from my perspective) happens after Lena (Cruz) has left the narrative –Cruz’s absence is palpable, and although that fits with the desolation that Mateo is initially left with, to me it made the film feel a bit unbalanced (even though we see her performance in Chicas y maletas (the film within the film) at the end of the film).

Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, 2006)

Yohana Cobo and Penélope Cruz

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave, Antonio de la Torre.

Synopsis: Raimunda (Cruz) has raised her daughter (Cobo) in the city, far away from the village where she grew up and the painful memories of a fractious relationship with her now-dead mother (Maura). But the past has a way of catching up with you - Raimunda's sister, Sole (Dueñas), returns from their aunt's (Lampreave) funeral apparently experiencing visions of their dead mother. But is she dead? And what does their aunt's neighbour (Portillo) know? But Raimunda has enough problems of her own -like what to do with the dead man (de la Torre) in her kitchen...

This is probably my favourite of Almodóvar’s films, although it does have some pretty strong competition. Few directors can veer so masterfully between comedy and tragedy as Almodóvar does in this film, sometimes within a single scene –it is genuinely funny but also carries a powerful emotional punch. My longer post on the film, seen through the prism of Cruz’s star image, is here.

La mala educación / Bad Education (Pedro Almodóvar, 2004)

Gael García Bernal

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, Lluís Homar, Daniel Jiménez Cacho, Javier Camára, Francisco Boira.

Synopsis: Where to begin with this one? ‘In 1980s Madrid two young men, filmmaker Enrique (Martínez) and aspiring actor Ignacio (García Bernal) open up dark secrets as they revisit their early years together at a Catholic school. As they try to uncover the truth about themselves, each other and the diverse characters in their story, they realize that things and people are not as they first seem’ (from the UK edition of the DVD because it’s a more concise summary than I could come up with).

This is one of those films that is best seen with as little knowledge about the plot as possible. Probably Almodóvar’s most narratively-complex film, we are given several narrative layers, a film within a film, and flashbacks that are not entirely trustworthy. With hindsight (or on second viewing), the complexity of the plot is signaled in the design of the opening credits (designed by Juan Gatti, Almodóvar’s habitual collaborator on credit sequences, posters, and press-packs since Women on the Verge…); layers are torn back to reveal names and other images underneath, and pictures are turned into mosaics (a motif in the film) as if torn up in a fit of pique. As the film unfolds we come to see that that we should not trust what is being presented to us; the past is being reconfigured, or rewritten, to suit the desires of one particular person (although he appears in many different guises).

I loved the film when I saw it for the first time and went back to see it again a couple of days later (it is definitely a film that can withstand multiple viewings), taking a friend with me who had never seen an Almodóvar film before. She was left speechless (and not in a good way), so be warned that it is not to everyone’s taste –but I think that people who like his films will find much to enjoy here (there are quite a lot of visual references to his other films hidden in the mix as well).

Hable con ella / Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)

Dario Grandinetti, Javier Camára and Leonor Watling

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Javier Camára, Dario Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores, Geraldine Chaplin.

Synopsis: Two men, a nurse (Camára) and a travel writer (Grandinetti), care for two comatose women (Watling and Flores). Through a series of flashbacks we discover how the women (a ballerina and a matador respectively) came to be in their comatose states, but also realise that their relationships with the men are not what they first appear to be.

A film that is both dark and unsettling but also nonetheless profoundly moving, especially in the later stages. On first viewing I don’t think that I ‘liked’ it, but it has grown on me over the years thanks in part to the two central performances from Camára and Grandinetti, but also because of Almodóvar’s refusal to judge his characters –it is now among my favourites of his films. A longer post on the film can be found here.

Pedro and Penélope

    Penélope Cruz has appeared in four Almodóvar films to date (Live Flesh (1997), All About My Mother (1999), Volver (2006), and Broken Embraces (2009)). I was going to simply write about Volver for the blog, it is among my favourite films, but in my mind the film is inextricably linked to Cruz and her star image (in part, no doubt, because that was the prism through which I initially viewed it –see note at the end of this post). Almodóvar has over the years worked with a succession of female muses: Carmen Maura, Victoria Abril, Marisa Paredes, and most recently Penélope Cruz. He adeptly both plays to their strengths and also pushes them beyond what they have delivered for other directors –labelling him a ‘women’s director’ is often meant to be derogatory, but Almodóvar directs women like few others. While his muses have played iconic roles for other directors, I would argue that the roles given to them by Almodóvar are among their most memorable, and (in terms of UK audiences) often their best known as well. It is a well-circulated story in her interviews that after sneaking into a screening of Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990), a young Penélope Cruz told her mother that she was going to be an actress and would someday work with Almodóvar. This post looks at how her career has intersected with his, and why Volver can be seen as a ‘star vehicle’ custom-made for her.

Todo sobre mi madre / All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, 1999)

Antonia San Juan, Cecilia Roth and Penélope Cruz

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Cecilia Roth, Antonia San Juan, Penélope Cruz, Marisa Paredes, Candela Pena, Rosa María Sardà, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Eloy Azorín, Toni Cantó.

Synopsis: After watching a stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire as a treat for her son's birthday, Manuela (Roth) watches in horror as her only child (Azorín) is killed in a hit and run while chasing after his favourite actress (Paredes) for an autograph. In a state of shock, Manuela leaves Madrid to return to Barcelona (after a long absence) in search of her former husband (Cantó) to tell him about their son. Along the way she meets old friends and makes new ones...

Along with Women on the Verge… this is the film I usually suggest when someone asks me where they should start with Almodóvar –I think it is among the most accessible of his films, but without losing any of the elements that make his films so distinctive.

Carne trémula / Live Flesh (Pedro Almodóvar, 1997)

Francesca Neri and Javier Bardem

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar, Ray Loriga, and Jorge Guerricaechevarria (based on a novel by Ruth Rendell)

Cast: Javier Bardem, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal, Ángela Molina, José Sancho, Penélope Cruz, Pilar Bardem, Alex Angulo.

Synopsis: During a confrontation between two policemen (Bardem and Sancho) and a youth, Victor (Rabal), in Elena's (Neri) apartment, a gun goes off and one of the policemen, David (Bardem), is shot, leaving him paralysed from the waist down. By the time Victor is released from prison, David and Elena have married and the former policeman is representing Spain in basketball at the Paralympics. But Victor feels he has been wronged and swears revenge...

The Inspector Wexford TV series was never like this! Almodóvar uses the Ruth Rendell novel as a starting point but then takes the initial situation (the shooting of a policeman) in his own inimitable direction. This seems to be another of his lesser-known films in the UK, probably in part because it is somewhat difficult to track down (it appears to currently be OOP, but secondhand copies can be found on ebay and Amazon). My longer post on the film is here.

La flor de mi secreto / The Flower of My Secret (Pedro Almodóvar, 1995)

Marisa Paredes and Imanol Arias

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Marisa Paredes, Juan Echanove, Imanol Arias, Chus Lampreave, Rossy De Palma.

Synopsis: Leo (Paredes) secretly writes bestselling romance novels under the pseudonym Amanda Gris, but as her marriage to Paco (Arias) falls apart (he is in Brussels working for NATO) she finds herself unable to write and her fiction takes a darker turn, much to the annoyance of her publisher (who threatens to sue). Hoping to be taken seriously as a writer, and wanting to leave her romance novels behind, Leo approaches Angel (Echanove) -the arts editor at El País- about writing criticism for the paper. Her first job? Reviewing the new Amanda Gris anthology. She decides to commit commercial suicide and attacks the book with gusto. Everything comes to a head when Paco comes home on leave…

The film marks the beginning of a more ‘serious’ phase in Almodóvar’s career. Aside from Marisa Paredes’s powerfully pain-stricken performance, it is probably most interesting for containing elements that would go on the shape the plots of All About My Mother and Volver. The organ donation scenes (specifically the training course for doctors, which features a nurse called Manuela ‘playing’ the mother in the role play) recur in All About My Mother, and the plot of the much darker novel (‘The Freezer’) that is rejected by the Amanda Gris publishers includes plot points that appear in Volver (the freezer of the title is where the main character hides her husband’s body in the restaurant next door).

Kika (Pedro Almodóvar, 1993)

Victoria Abril

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Verónica Forqué, Victoria Abril, Peter Coyote, Alex Casanovas, Rossy De Palma.

Synopsis: Make-up artist Kika (Forqué) lives with her photographer boyfriend Ramón (Casanovas) who remains obsessed with his mother’s suicide some years earlier. Ramón’s ex-stepfather (and Kika’s ex-lover), Nicholas (an American writer (Coyote)), returns to Madrid after two years of travelling and moves into the studio above their apartment. Andrea (Abril) is a former psychologist (and Ramón’s ex) who now presents a garish reality TV show, El peor del día (The Worst of the Day), which broadcasts real footage of horrific crimes. Meanwhile, an escaped rapist seeks assistance from his sister (De Palma), who happens to be Kika’s housekeeper…

A.k.a. the first Almodóvar film I ever saw. Despite it being disliked by many people, and despite my own ‘issues’ with the film (namely the rape scene), I do hold it in some affection simply because it was my introduction to the director. It gives a scathing critique of ‘reality’ television and is a difficult film to like, perhaps not surprisingly given that Almodóvar has said that it is about ‘the sickness of big cities’ (Strauss 2006: 123). But Verónica Forqué gives a wonderful performance as the ever-optimistic Kika (and was memorably described in Sight & Sound as ‘a curious combination of Judy Holliday and Barbara Windsor’ by Paul Julian Smith (1994: 8)), and Victoria Abril also looks like she’s having fun as the deeply malevolent Andrea Caracortada (‘Scarface’). 

Machos in Madrid: Carne trémula / Live Flesh (Pedro Almodóvar, 1997)

Javier Bardem and José Sancho

       Paul Julian Smith states that, along with Almodóvar’s previous film (The Flower of My Secret (1995)), Live Flesh signals the start of a more mature phase of the director’s career (2003: 150), although it maintains several of his predominant interests, including the subversion of gender stereotypes (Smith 1998: 8). Live Flesh is effectively a treatise on machismo and the damage that it inflicts on both men and women, articulated through the generic guise of a thriller. It was the first of Almodóvar’s films to focus exclusively on masculinity and its incarnations (although women are the cause of much that goes on in the film), and Rikki Morgan-Tamosunas argues that this focus on male characters ‘exposes some of the contradictions inherent in traditional notions of masculinity’ (2002: 190). 

     Steve Marsh posits that the film is also the first of Almodóvar’s films to use men as something more than ciphers and that not only are they imbued with history, but they are also constructed by it (2004: 54): ‘While this is indisputably Almodóvar’s male movie, its exploration of heterosexual masculinity is intimately linked to the political configurations of the time and space of the city of Madrid’ (58). Almodóvar is part of Madrid’s cultural heritage, having been a major figure in la movida in the 1980s, and all of his films (including Live Flesh) had been set in Madrid. However, Almodóvar had always been a chronicler of the here and now, refusing to focus on the past, and his films were famous for avoiding direct references to Franco or the dictatorship; what marks out Live Flesh is that it is the last of his films (to date) to be set exclusively in Madrid (his next film, All About My Mother (1999), was his first to be set outside of Madrid (it mainly takes place in Barcelona) and his subsequent films have been made in a variety of locations), and the first in which Spain’s past reverberates through the narrative. History, masculinity, the city of Madrid, and Spain itself, become encapsulated in the lives of the three male characters (Sancho (José Sancho), David (Javier Bardem), and Víctor (Liberto Rabal)). 

Tacones lejanos / High Heels (Pedro Almodóvar, 1991)

Miguel Bosé

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Victoria Abril, Marisa Paredes, Miguel Bosé, Feodor Atkine, Miriam Díaz Aroca.

Synopsis: After more than fifteen years abroad, singer Becky del Paramo (Paredes) returns home to Spain to find her daughter, Rebeca (Abril), grown-up and married to one of Becky’s former lovers (Atkine). In her mother’s absence, Rebeca has taken to watching the performances of Femme Letal (Bosé), a drag artiste who imitates Becky’s musical performances from the 1960s. When all of these elements come together, murder follows…

A.k.a. the first Spanish film that I attempted to watch without subtitles. It didn’t go very well because I’d only had three Spanish lessons at that point, and surprisingly enough cross-dressing and murder investigations hadn’t featured in the vocab lists, but I did make some very detailed notes about the costumes! Shortly afterwards I did manage to find a copy with subtitles, so all became clear –it is virtually impossible to follow the plot if you can’t understand what is being said. I’d forgotten how much I liked it and also how strong the performances by the three central actors (Abril, Paredes, and Bosé –the latter of whom actually plays three different roles within the film, which was one of the things that confused me during the without-subtitles viewing) are. I was going to write a longer post about it for Almodóvar Month, but I’ve decided to use it for an ‘Anatomy of a Scene’ post at some point in the future instead. This seems to be one of Almodóvar’s lesser-known films, which is a shame because it is one of my favourites –check it out!

¡Átame! / Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Pedro Almodóvar, 1990)

Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Victoria Abril, Antonio Banderas, Loles León, Francisco (Paco) Rabal.

Synopsis: Freshly released from the mental hospital, Ricky (Banderas) wants to settle down, get married and have kids. He has decided that his future wife will be Marina (Abril), an ex-porn star, now serious actress (with a drug habit), who is working on a horror film for renowned director Máximo Espejo (Rabal). So he kidnaps her, ties her to the bed, and announces his intentions…

Released with little fuss in Spain (where it was favourably received by the critics and was among the biggest domestic hits of the year (Smith 2000: 108)), this film became notorious on its release in the US and led to the creation of the NC-17 certificate (the MPAA originally gave the film an X rating, which was usually applied to hard-core pornography). I’ve clearly become de-sensitised to sexual content because I struggle to see what the fuss was about (is the plot actually that different to Beauty and the Beast?). I think your perception of the film depends on whether you take the world on screen to be ‘reality’ or a heightened, Almodóvarian representation. I’m trying to keep these summaries short, so there isn’t really the space to discuss it here, but I don’t think that the film is intended to be taken as literally as some people have done. One to be written about in the future, when I’ve got more time and space to discuss it.

Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios / Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, 1988)

Julieta Serrano

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Carmen Maura, Maria Barranco, Julieta Serrano, Antonio Banderas, Rossy De Palma, Kiti Manver, Fernando Guillen, Chus Lampreave.

Synopsis: Ivan (Guillen) has left Pepa (Maura). As she alternately tries to track him down around Madrid and waits for his call at home, a range of people (including her friend Candela (Barranco), on the run from the police for harbouring Shi’ite terrorists, the son she never knew Ivan had (Banderas), and Ivan’s unhinged wife (Serrano)) drop by her apartment to further complicate her life. With added Mambo Taxi.

This was Almodóvar’s breakout international hit and the film that, along with All About My Mother, seems to have found his broadest audience –certainly in my own experience, this is a film that most people have heard of, even if they haven’t seen it. It is a comedy but that label barely covers all that it contains –screwball tragic-comedy might be nearer the mark- because while it is undeniably funny, it also contains heartfelt and believable emotion. If you’ve never seen an Almodóvar film, this is a good place to start.

Reading Almodóvar, Part Two:

Part Two: Authors I - Z

Reading Almodóvar, Part One:

Like my lists of books on Spanish cinema, this is something of a cross between an annotated bibliography and a recommended reading list. This is not intended to be a definitive list –there are an abundance of other books and articles on Almodóvar and his films– but rather a list of texts that I have happened upon while researching Almodóvar, and / or Spanish cinema more generally. I don’t necessarily agree with all of the arguments or interpretations set forth by these authors, but I do think that their views are worth considering. The first Almodóvar film that I saw was Kika (1993), and this list contains a bias towards things written after that point (and about films made after that point as well). Likewise, there is a bias towards texts written in either English or Spanish, but given Almodóvar’s status in France there is also a wealth of material in French out there, if you care to look for it –particularly Cahiers du cinema, Positif, and Premiere (the French version). Most of the French magazines have websites where you can buy back issues (if you can’t get access to them through a library).
If I have embedded a link in the title, it will take you either to the abstract or the article itself –a great deal of material is now available online. Where that isn’t the case I will try to include enough information that you should be able to track it down via another route –if you can’t access the articles online, people in the UK will be able to get copies through the British Library or the BFI Library. In the case of reviews, I have just indicated which film is discussed.

Comatose Women in The Forest: Hable con ella / Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)

This post is a reworked version of a twenty-minute paper I gave at a conference (‘Bitch, Witch, Whore: Representations of Women in Word and Image’) at Newcastle University in 2006.

Warning: contains spoilers.

   When I was reading about Talk to Her I came across a self-interview (on his website) (2002a) where Almodóvar made reference to Leonor Watling as having been marvellous as Alicia, ‘that sleeping beauty’ (lower case), and that set me to thinking about literary references within the film. The film concerns two ‘couples’ –the first made up of a nurse (Benigno –Javier Cámara) and his patient (Alicia –Leonor Watling), and the second of a journalist (Marco –Dario Grandinetti) and his bullfighting girlfriend (Lydia –Rosario Flores). When Lydia ends up comatose as the result of a bullfight she is placed in the same hospital as Alicia and that is how the two men come to meet each other. Talk to Her is a film concerned with the telling of tales; the audience are rarely shown ‘events’ firsthand, as characters are engaged in a series of flashbacks and a ‘re-telling’ of events. In a departure for Almodóvar, who usually draws his visual and narrative references from the cinema, this film is a tapestry of literary allusions ranging from The Night of the Hunter to Romeo and Juliet to The Hours, with the result that Talk to Her itself can be read in terms of a modern day fairytale. The upbeat ending is also in keeping with Bruno Bettelheim’s reading of the fairy story as being ‘optimistic, no matter how terrifyingly serious some features of the story may be’ (1976: 37).

   While the film focuses on the two male protagonists (Benigno and Marco), this [post] will examine the woman with whom they both interact, Alicia. She is one of a series of comatose or silent women in the narrative, and is cared for in a clinic called ‘El Bosque’, or ‘The Forest’. Alicia is at the epicentre, although not always the subject, of a series of references to archetypal literary heroines such as Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Alice (in Wonderland). This [post] will argue that the combination of literary references and Almodóvar’s reputation as a ‘woman’s director’ means that there is more to the representation of the film’s women, who are comatose, voiceless, and lacking control over their own bodies, than is apparent at first glance. 

La ley del deseo / Law of Desire (Pedro Almodóvar, 1987)

Eusebio Poncela and Antonio Banderas

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Carmen Maura, Eusebio Poncela, Manuela Velasco.

Synopsis: A stalker (Banderas) enters the lives of director Pablo (Poncela) and his sister (formerly brother) Tina (Maura) with tragic consequences –a tale of love and obsession.

This is the first of Almodóvar’s films to be produced by the production company (El Deseo) that he founded with his brother Agustín, and therefore the first of his productions where he had full control over the project. In many ways it is a flipside to his previous film, Matador, insofar as both explore the nature of desire: in Matador desire was centred on sex (and murder) and in Law of Desire the focus is love (in many different guises). Nonetheless desire is shown to be just as obsessive (and dangerous) as in the earlier film as what Pablo (Poncela) views as a casual relationship is seen as rather more by Antonio (Banderas), whose ‘love’ is in turn both obsessive and extremely possessive. Although not without its humorous moments, it is a dark film. That said, I think we are given enough reason to hope that the family unit made up of Pablo, Tina (Maura) and Ada (Velasco) is strong enough to survive the (moving) finale. Maura’s performance is magnificent and she richly deserved the awards that came her way.

Matador (Pedro Almodóvar, 1985)

Assumpta Serna and Nacho Martínez

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar and Jesús Ferrero

Cast: Assumpta Serna, Nacho Martínez, Antonio Banderas, Carmen Maura, Eusebio Poncela, Eva Cobo, Chus Lampreave, Julieta Serrano.

Synopsis: Bullfighting, sex, and death. Sometimes all at once.

This is a bit of an odd one -and Almodóvar admits that he can understand why (to the viewer) the themes (death and destiny) may appear more important than the story (Strauss 2006: 53). The two most memorable scenes (at least, the ones that I remembered ten years after seeing the film for the first time) are the beginning and ending. In the first, we hear the retired bullfighter, Diego (Martínez), describing the perfect kill (in the bullring) to a class of students while we see (meanwhile) María (Serna) killing her lover by the method being described. The closing sequence brings together the same themes (and characters) in an elaborate 'death-as-the-ultimate-orgasm' finale. 

¡Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? / What Have I Done to Deserve This? (Pedro Almodóvar, 1984)

Verónica Forqué and Carmen Maura

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Carmen Maura, Chus Lampreave, Verónica Forqué, Kiti Manver, Angel de Andrés López.

Synopsis: Gloria (Maura) is a prescription drug-addicted working mother struggling to make ends meet for her family.

'Almodóvar-does-social-realism' but with mordant black humour, children being sold to paedophile dentists to cover the bill, the Hitler diaries, death by hambone, and a little girl with telekinesis. Darkly funny and probably the first of Almodóvar’s films to show what Maura is really capable of.

Laberinto de pasiones / Labyrinth of Passion (Pedro Almodóvar, 1982)

Imanol Arias and Fanny McNamara

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Cecilia Roth, Imanol Arias, Antonio Banderas, Marta Fernández-Muro, Helga Liné

Synopsis: Heirs to fallen Arab empires, nymphomaniacs, terrorists who track people through sense of smell, test-tube babies, incest, and squabbling band members.

Sexilia (Roth) and Riza Niro (Arias) are ostensibly the couple at the centre of the film, but the plot is a bit of a mess -there are simply too many characters and too much going on. Highlights: Imanol Arias joining a band and having a blast on stage; and a baby-faced Banderas as a gay terrorist who tracks people through his powerful sense of smell.

Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón / Pepi, Luci, Bom and other girls on the heap (Pedro Almodóvar, 1980)

Alaska, Eva Siva and Carmen Maura

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Carmen Maura, Alaska, Eva Siva, Félix Rotaeta

Synopsis: When Pepi (Maura) is raped by a policeman (Rotaeta) she vows revenge -she ropes in her rock star friend Bom (Alaska) to help compromise (and liberate) the policeman's seemingly docile wife, Luci (Siva). 

This is not one of my favourite Almodóvar films, but despite its crudity (in form and content) it nonetheless has moments of infectious fun. Stylistically there is little to connect this to the director's later work, but his sense of humour (a combination of the outrageous and the mundane) is in evidence, and what would become the recurring theme of female friendship and solidarity is also apparent in the relationship between Luci and Bom.

Almodóvar Month begins…

So August has arrived, the countdown to the UK release (on the 26th) of La piel que habito / The Skin I Live In starts, and it’s Almodóvar Month here at Nobody Knows Anybody.

I haven’t managed to do quite what I wanted (in a previous post I said that I hoped to write about my ten favourite Almodóvar films), but I think I’ll actually manage to say something (however short) about all seventeen films and will write something about the eighteenth once I get to see it.

Here’s what will be appearing on the blog throughout August:

• I’ve written a paragraph on each of the films and those will be posted up in chronological order with basic credits and a synopsis.
• There will be an Almodóvar ‘book list’ in the style of the Spanish cinema ones I have posted previously.
• There will be a series of longer posts looking at specific films –including High Heels, Live Flesh, Talk to Her, and Volver. These won't be going up in chronological order because I'm still writing the High Heels one.
• There may also be some other things –for example, I’d quite like to write something about his film posters, but it depends on how much time I have.

Anyway, hopefully there’ll be something for everyone (providing they like the films), and please feel free to chip in via the comments section with your thoughts about the various films –have I underestimated one? Or over-praised another? 

Agnosia (Eugenio Mira, 2010)

Director: Eugenio Mira

Screenwriter: Antonio Trashorras

Cast: Bárbara Goenaga, Eduardo Noriega, Félix Gómez, Martina Gedeck, Sergi Mateu, Jack Taylor

Trailer: short version (haven’t been able to find the subtitled full-length version) 

Availability: available to buy and rent in the UK.

Synopsis: Barcelona, 1899. Joana (Bárbara Goenaga) suffers from agnosia, a neuropsychological condition that affects her perception. Interested parties suspect that she is the only person who knows an industrial secret relating to her father’s business, and so a conspiracy evolves with the aim of obtaining the secret by deception. Two men, Carles (Eduardo Noriega), her fiancé, and Vicent (Félix Gómez), a servant, are her only form of protection. But can she trust them? And can she trust her own senses?

agnosia, n.

A condition in which people can see, but cannot recognise or interpret, visual stimuli; loss of perceptive power; loss of the power to recognise people or things seen.

Note: contains minor spoilers (although nothing that you couldn’t guess from the trailer).

More articles added to the Spanish cinema reading list

All of these articles come from issue 39 of Archivos de la filmoteca, the search for a copy of which became something of an unresolved Holy Grail-type quest during my PhD –the articles in this specific issue are repeatedly referenced in books and articles on Spanish cinema of the 1990s but it is really difficult to track down. I found this copy a few months ago through Abe Books but only bought it last month after deciding that my quest would not be complete until I actually had a copy (I’d been dithering because I no longer ‘need’ it). These are just the articles that look at some general issues in Spanish cinema of the period (although taking specific films as examples) –there are others in the issue that take specific films or filmmakers as the basis for the article, but I’m not adding those at the moment because I will eventually do a filmmaker / specific film list. The articles listed below have been added to Books on Spanish cinema, Parts One and Two. 

Benet, V.J. (2001) –‘El malestar del entretenimiento’, Archivos de la filmoteca, no.39, October, pp.40-53.

[Taken from the official abstract] This article looks at various film adaptations of Spanish novels, specifically those of Ray Loriga and José Ángel Mañas. The analysis examines the values and symbols reflected in these films, which differ significantly from films made during the Spanish transition to democracy. The article situates the relationship between these films and their literary sources within an economic perspective, taking leisure and entertainment as key cultural concepts.

Gámez Fuentes, M.J. (2001) –‘No todo sobre las madres: cine español y género de los noventa’, Archivos de la filmoteca, no.39, October, pp.68-85.

[Taken from the official abstract] This paper analyses the various images of motherhood through their configuration in ‘90s films such as El pájaro de la felicidad (1993), Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto (1995), Solas (1999) and Todo sobre mi madre (1999). The different figures are considered as cultural products which articulate tensions contextualized at a particular historical moment: the consolidation of democracy in Spain. Through a detailed study of the maternal, such issues as job access, geographical origin and sexual identity are discussed within the framework of the private and public negotiations women are to be faced with in the new welfare state. The legacy of the dictatorial past is, undoubtedly, a question that also permeates the construction of female narratives -unfolded here in personal and historical complexity.

Quintana, Á. (2001) –‘El cine como realidad y el mundo como representación: algunos síntomas de los noventa’, Archivos de la filmoteca, no.39, October, pp.8-25.

[Taken from the official abstract] In contrast to traditional discussions of film and history, the author takes the concept of historicity to examine the relationship between thought, culture, and art at a specific moment in the history of cinema. As point of departure, the article takes the commonly cited crisis of reality in Spanish cinema of the 1990s, in particular three significant cultural phenomena: the identity crisis, excessive images of violence, and the transformation of the world into a gigantic Platonic cave. These phenomena are observed in the various models of Spanish film of the 1990s, where a new generation of filmmakers aim to situate their films within the cultural logic of postmodernity. The author affirms that representative figures in Spanish film are a symptom of the global crisis of the real that is affecting the world, dominated by a loss of faith in the media and the creation of new spatial and temporal dimensions in a virtual sphere.  

New poster for Blackthorn

Via Trailers y Estrenos

It's not my intention to post every new Spanish film poster that comes along but, as I've already posted those for La piel que habito and Extraterrestre, I thought that this one should also go up as it is another of the four forthcoming (in 2011) Spanish films that I'm most interested in.

In other news: Yes, it has been a bit slow on here recently (I've had to prioritise other things), but it should start to pick up again in the next couple of weeks.

New poster for La piel que habito

Via tío Oscar

This is the new poster for Almodóvar’s La piel que habito (which looks like a photo from a distance but is actually a painting), and there are also new images and clips in circulation (for example, see La Katarsis del Cine Español). I’m not going to post much more about the film now until it has its release in the UK (which now looks like it will be the end of August rather than November) –I’m deliberately not reading the reviews coming out of Cannes because I’d rather go in knowing as little as possible. Nobody Knows Anybody will also be having an Almodóvar month closer to the UK release, so when the date seems a bit more concrete (it seems odd to me that we would get the film before Spain (where it has a September date)) I’ll post some details about that.
Fingers crossed tomorrow for Pedro & co. at Cannes.

New Book Added to List

I have added this book to the list in Part One of the Books on Spanish Cinema posts [reasons for creating the list are explained in there]:

Davies, A. (ed.) (2010) –Spain on Screen: Developments in Contemporary Spanish Cinema, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 9780230236202
This collection stems from a one-day symposium on contemporary Spanish cinema held at Newcastle University in July 2008. I was in the audience at that symposium and there were some very interesting discussions –these articles are mainly extended versions of the papers given that day (with a few written especially for this book).
• Introduction: The Study of Contemporary Spanish Cinema –Ann Davies
• Audiences, Film Culture, Public Subsidies: The End of Spanish Cinema? –Barry Jordan
• Al mal tiempo, buena cara: Spanish Slackers, Time-images, New Media and the New Cinema Law –Rob Stone
• Re-visions of Teresa: Historical Fiction in Television and Film –Paul Julian Smith
• The Final Girl and Monstrous Mother of El orfanato –Ann Davies
• Ensnared Between Pleasure and Politics: Looking for Chicas Bigas Luna, Re-viewing Bambola –Santiago Fouz-Hernández
• Javier Bardem: Costume, Crime, and Commitment –Chris Perriam
• Children of Exile: Trauma, Memory and Testimony in Jaime Camino’s Documentary Los niños de Rusia (2001) –Julián Daniel Gutiérrez-Albilla

Books on Spanish Cinema, Part Two

This is Part Two of the list that I started yesterday (see Part One here).

Part Two: Authors J (continued) - Z

Books on Spanish Cinema, Part One

This post is inspired by my attempts a couple of weeks ago to discover which films were covered in an edited collection of articles on Spanish films. I was looking for info about / analysis of La madre muerta and I knew that the book in question looked at key Spanish films –but could I find a list of contents anywhere? No. Not on Amazon, not on the publisher’s website, not on the public library catalogue. I eventually tracked down a copy in one of the university libraries in this city (it didn’t have anything about La madre muerta, incidentally), but this reminded me that the recurring problem that I have had when buying books about Spanish cinema, especially when the books are in Spanish, is that I effectively have to buy ‘blind’ because there is so little information about the book available online. This is especially true on websites such as Casa del Libro, which lists very little information beyond author, title, and publisher, but Amazon is equally as bad with edited collections (where you are often given no indication of what topics are included, or who has written the various articles) and books not in English. Note to publishers: putting some kind of content information online would net you more sales.
    
So, I’ve decided to be helpful (at least, this would have been helpful to me in the past).
    
What I’m going to do is this: with books that are written by one author, I will write a (very) brief summary of the book; with the edited collections, I will include the list of contents; and if an article is available online, I will link to it. I’m not going to translate the titles of articles that are in Spanish because there is little point given that the article itself will also be in Spanish. The aim for this resource is that it will be a cross between a recommended reading list and an annotated bibliography –I may write some book reviews of some of the books included at a later date, but that is not the purpose of this particular post.
First up will be books / articles that are about Spanish cinema in general (I will post something about books on directors / actors / specific films at a later date) –this is going to be split across more than one post because I’ve got rather a long list. The books / articles are being chosen by two criteria: 1) I’ve read them and currently have access to a copy (I can’t get the information without the physical copy) and 2) they relate to the period that I’ve said this blog is going to cover (the last twenty years). The latter point is why some older books by significant authors are not included. The list is in alphabetical order by author because that’s the most straightforward way to do it. If you think that I’ve left a glaring omission (especially for books in Spanish –buying blind means that my collection is a bit hit and miss), please leave a comment below. Likewise, if you’ve got something to say about the books included, please join in as well!
If you’re in the UK, most of these books can be obtained from the British Library via the Inter-Library Loan system. If you want to buy any, I’d recommend comparing the prices available between Amazon, Casa del Libro, Ocho y Medio, The Book Depository, Alibris, and Abe Books –there are bargains to be had if you do some searching (but likewise there are some people –on Amazon in particular- selling second-hand copies for absurdly high prices).
Ok, let’s get started!

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.