directed by Luis García Berlanga
For those who celebrate Christmas, as well as those who don’t – I bet you know it’s coming. So I’ve decided to recommend you a film which is set during one Christmas, but if you’re expecting a sugar-sweet production full of lights and happy songs, then I’m sorry. I’m writing about it way before Christmas on purpose, because I feel it presents something we should remember all year round and perhaps it’d be nice to remind ourselves about it before the end of the year. Today I’m taking you back in time to a small Spanish town. There, a group of religious ladies propose an unusual event – they encourage wealthy citizens to invite poor ones to their houses for Christmas. And then a big mess begins as old Spanish cinema is actually very loud, full of people, with lots of conversations (very fast ones, you have to be a fast subtitles reader or just speak Spanish, no other way), too many characters to recognise and as if someone mixed two scripts into one. That’s how I personally see old Spanish cinema. But it has its charm, I have to admit that. Anyway, back to the film. The title comes from the name of one character (played by Cassen), who is actually more of a distraction. Because, in my opinion, the main idea is hidden in the background. We can observe how the rich make use of even such ordinary and human action as feeding the poor. And how the poor cannot really get on with the rich, no matter how hard we try to mix them all. Maybe it’s not a must-see production, but if you like black comedies which leave you with an existential crisis, then here you go. I guess the most depressing is that this film was made 80 years ago and we still treat each other the same way. As if humanity was programmed to be selfish and self-centred. Call me a film-masochist, but sometimes I enjoy watching such productions as they remind me of the reality from which I often run away watching other films. But I have three things to encourage you. Uno – José Luis López Vázquez plays in this film and he’s one of my favourite Spanish actors from the previous century. Dos – this film was one of the five productions nominated to win Best Foreign Language Film award in 1961 (lost to Bergman, duh!). Tres – you can play a drinking game while watching. Each time you hear the name “Antonia”, take a shot. You can thank me later.
My rating: 6/10
S.
I have nothing to watch 