In this long interview done by the TVE (Televisión Española), Julio Cortázar reveals details on the creative process of his tales and which were his writing habits. During the interview (TV program “A fondo”, 1977), the Argentinean writer also talks about his family, his first writings, about Argentina and the exile, among other subjects.Read More »
Quote:
The medium-length film No compteu amb els dits, Pere Portabella’s first work as a director, starts with the following phrase: “defeated…but not conquered”. This may or should be taken as an allusion to the technical K.O. taken by Portabella from Franco’s regime during the sixties as regards his work as a producer. Through the extremely raging playthings of the words of Catalan poet Joan Brossa, Portabella attempts to dismantle the forms of advertising discourse of that time. —pereportabella.comRead More »
A young man, Marco, working as a butcher, accidentally kills a taxi driver. His girlfriend Paula wants to go to the police so he has to kill her too. He then has to kill his brother, his brother’s fiancée and his father, who have become suspicious. He gets rid of the bodies by taking them to a slaughterhouse.Read More »
Synopsis:
After years in Mexican exile, Buñuel returned to his native Spain to make this dark account of corruption, which was immediately banned. A young nun, full of charity, kindness, and idealistic illusions about humanity, visits her uncle and tries to help some local peasants and beggars. But her altruism is greeted with ridicule and cruelty. Pinal gives a superb performance in the title role, and Buñuel’s clear-eyed wit is relentless in its depiction of human selfishness, ingratitude, and cynicism. The final beggars’ orgy – a black parody of the Last Supper, performed to the ethereal strains of Handel’s Messiah – is one of the director’s most memorably disturbing, funny, and brutal scenes. A masterpiece.
— Timeout.Read More »
Synopsis:
A couple traveling through the countryside strike a man on a bicycle. When they get out of their car to examine him, they find that he is injured but not dead. But instead of helping the man, Juan (Alberto Closas) and Maria Jose (Lucia Bosé) do the unthinkable. They flee – rather than reveal that they have been carrying on a long-term affair.
When they return to Madrid, the couple pay a terrible price for their deception. Guilt begins to gnaw away at them, especially at Juan, who is also experiencing conflict with his young students over an ethical issue at the university where he teaches…Read More »
Synopsis:
‘La novia ensangrentada, or The Blood Spattered Bride as it’s more commonly known amongst English speaking audiences, starts as a man & his newlywed wife Susan move into his large ancestral home that come complete with servants. At first things seem perfect but it’s not long before Susan starts to see a mysterious woman in her dreams who seems to leave a dagger for her on her bed one night, a dagger that keeps turning up no matter how hard her husband tries to get rid of it. While doing some detective work Susan discovers that the woman in her dreams resembles one of her husbands ancestors, Mircalla Karnstein. Meanwhile her husband has found a naked woman named Carmilla buried on a beach so he decides to take her home, as you would. Straight away Susan notices that Carmilla looks exactly like the woman in her dreams, now her dreams are about to turn into nightmares…’
– Paul AndrewsRead More »
Often described as “the Spanish A Clockwork Orange”, this controversial shocker is set in a violent near-future world. Honest citizens live in terror as gangs of leather clad, whip-wielding sadists roam the nighttime streets. Meanwhile, in a top-secret laboratory, strange mind control experiments are being conducted. Against this background a beautiful nurse tries to ease the pain of those condemned to die. But who really is this angel of mercy and what is the purpose of her mission?Read More »
“No One Heard the Scream” is another terrific Spanish horror film from the troubled director Eloy de la Iglesia. The film stars two of his strongest performers, Carmen Sevilla (from de la Iglesia’s “The Glass Ceiling”) and Vincente Parra (from de la Iglesia’s “Cannibal Man”), and so with these two tried-and-true leads it is hard for this film to fail. While it is not as overtly frightening as the other two aforementioned films, “No One Heard the Scream” definitely has its moments. Sevilla plays a professional mistress who bids farewell to her older lover when she meets the handsome man next door (Parra); unfortunately for Sevilla, Parra has just murdered his wife.Read More »
After finishing a strict and traumatizing education at a Jesuit seminary, young Roberto is offered a post by the priest of his village: The local count is looking for a new teacher for his eight year old niece, Flora. Roberto accepts the post and soon finds himself traveling to the remote estate of the count by the seaside which is taken care of by the old housekeeper Mrs. Antonia. In the beginning, everything is well but with the arrival of Flora’s elder brother Mikel who has been expelled from school, things start to get disquieting. In his attempts to find out why Mikel was expelled, Roberto soon unearths unsettling secrets – about himself and about Cristina, his deceased predecessor and Pedro, a former servant of the count who now seems to lurk within the dark corridors of the mansion. Could it be that these two sinister beings are trying to get back to life by the souls of the children?Read More »