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program notes and times
Note: all films are subtitled in English except as noted.
Presented in collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers (SGAE) and the Spanish Ministry of Culture (ICAA).
SPEAK, SILENT ONE /
HABLA, MUDITA
In Gutiérrez Aragón's debut film, imposed muteness becomes a metaphor for the state of Franco's Spain and for humanity itself. A book publisher (José Luis Lopez Vasquez) encounters a young, deaf-mute shepherdess (Kiti Manver) while seeking out a rare owl in the mountains. The girl has been kept untutored by her backward family and Don Ramiro becomes so obsessed with trying to teach the indifferent child to speak that he quits his job in the city. But language never guarantees communication, and dangerous misunderstandings about Don Ramiro's true nature and motives subvert his dream of introducing his protégé to a larger, richer reality. (1973; 85m)
Fri Dec 4: 2
THINGS I LEFT IN HAVANA /
COSAS QUE DEJE EN LA HABANA
A humorous and witty study of the effects of immigration, Things is written by Senel Paz (Strawberry and Chocolate) and features an excellent cast of newcomers who shine under Gutiérrez Aragón's assured direction. Nena (Violete Rodriguez), a youthful, gutsy wannabe actress, the shy Ludmila (Broselianda Hernández) and the maternal Rosa (Isabel Santos) are sisters who have come from Havana to live with their aunt in Madrid. Aunt Maria tries to arrange for the girls' futures, work-wise and matrimonially, but the dynamics of romance go wonderfully haywire when Javier, Barbaro and Igor make their idiosyncratic appearances. Things is a tender and loving portrayal of the survival instincts of Cubans in Spain, filled with humor, grace and sexual energy, but never falling into sentimentality. The film moves to the rhythms of rumbas, boleros, and tangos. (1998; 110m)
Fri Dec 4: 8:30; Sat Dec 5: 6:15;
Sun Dec 6: 8:15
BLACK BROOD /
CAMADA NEGRA
In BLACK BROOD, a 15-year-old Fascist wannabe named Tatin is shaped by two opposed Madonnas--his dominating mama and the young single mother who deflowers him. Mother runs a right-wing terrorist group--mostly composed of her sons--in memory of her dead hero-husband, and Tatin swears to adhere to his family's code: revenge, secrecy and absolute
willingness to sacrifice anyone and anything to the cause. What comes of Tatin's black covenant and the competition between his two women is horrifying in this savage and highly contoversial critique of Franco's Spain. (1977; 82m)
Wed Dec 9: 2 and 6:15;
Thurs Dec 10: 4;
Sat Dec 12: 8:40
SOMNAMBULISTS /
SONAMBULOS
Equal parts dream and magic realism, this fairy tale is about a sort of Princess--Ana, a Communist militant suffering from cancer--who betrays her mother (the Queen?) in order to cheat death. Gutiérrez Aragón strikingly visualizes "worlds" of illusion, such as a library in which Ana sleeps while mounted police plunge through the building's glass windows; Strindbergian theater, isolated from the flux and flow of
actual experience; and home itself, tainted with politics and false emotion. This highly inventive film exposes the folly of humanity's attempts to "wake up" and cut through scrims of illusion to the heart of existence. (1978; 93m)
Wed Dec 9: 4;
Thurs Dec 10: 2;
Sun Dec 13: 8:40
THE HEART OF THE FOREST /
EL CORAZON DEL BOSQUE
"In a brilliant and daring directorial peformance, Gutiérrez Aragón uses a classically realistic context--the adventures and misadventures of clandestine partisans in the Asturian mountains during the 1942-1952 period--to sketch out an ingenious reflection on the "partisan myth," which he presents as a black fairy tale. The "ogre" in this case is a veteran and apparently indestructible guerrilla leader, no longer a freedom fighter but a slave who robs to survive, a character as sinister and elusive as Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, upon which this film is loosely based. Its castle is the forest, filmed with great sensitivity as if it were another human character; in fact, it is the real protagonist of the film. The captured princess is the sister of one of his captured companions of yesteryear, Juan, who plays a part in the fairy tale similar to Marlow's in Conrad's original. Their lonely adventure, which recreates long-forgotten and yet delightful terrors of a child lost in the woods, is the center of this powerful and haunting film." -- Jose Luis Guarner, International Film Guide (1979; 105m)
Wed Dec 16: 2 and 9:15;
Thurs Dec 17: 4 and 8:15
MARAVILLAS
Fifteen-year-old Maravillas lives with her father, an unemployed photographer with a penchant for mildly erotic pastimes. She spends a lot of time with a group of elderly Sephardic Jews, who become something like her "godfathers." One night Maravillas witnesses the assault and robbery of a priest by a group of young delinquents. Curiously, the thieves miss an emerald hidden underneath the victim's shirt. What was the priest doing with this gem? Why does he refuse to report the robbery to the police? Winner of the Silver Hugo at the 1981 Chicago International Film Festival, Maravillas is
perhaps Gutiérrez Aragón's finest treatment of the conflict between varying layers of "reality," showing how invisible forces often conspire to unite or separate characters or alter the course of events. (1981; 95m)
Wed Dec 16: 4;
Thurs Dec 17: 2 and 6:15;
Sat Dec 19: 4:30
DEMONS IN THE GARDEN /
DEMONIOS EN EL JARDIN
DEMONS IN THE GARDEN focuses on three generations of an agrarian Spanish family. Most or all the family members have come of age since the Spanish Civil War. Fact becomes legend and
legend becomes fact concerning that conflict, while the family is destroyed from within by corruption and long-smoldering rivalries. All of this is told from the point of view of the youngest (and, we are to assume, least emotionally damaged) family member. DEMONS IN THE GARDEN is very much in tune with the other multigenerational works of Gutiérrez Aragón, many of whose films are creative cannonades aimed directly at the now-defunct Franco regime. -- Hal Erickson, All-Movie Guide
(1982; 100m)
Wed Dec 23: 2 and 6:15;
Sat Dec 26: 6:30
FEROCIOUS /
FEROZ
This bent fantasy--concerning a young man who turns into
a bear who then becomes a young man--is as protean as its subject matter: Ferocious is a drama that metamorphoses into comedy that morphs into satire. A runaway youth sleeps through the winter in a cave and emerges as a bear--quite obviously a man wearing a bear suit. Adopted by a writer (Fernando Fernán Gómez), our ursine hero learns how to use a computer and speaks as the young man. At an afternoon tea party, the bear kills a dog in self-defense and is forced to head back to his cave for the winter--where he emerges after a long hibernation as the young man. A very provocative fable about what makes a man not a bear and a bear not a man. (1983; 110m)
Wed Dec 23: 4 and 8:15;
Thurs Dec 24: 2 and 6:40
HALF OF HEAVEN /
LA MITAD DEL CIELO
A panoramic view of the postwar years in Spain, HALF OF HEAVEN follows the rise of Rosa (Angela Molina, in an extremely impressive performance) from a poverty-hating peasant girl to one of Madrid's leading restaurateurs. Along the way, she is invaluably aided by the psychic powers of her grandmother, Olvido, who can predict the future and remains part of the household long after her retirement from this earthly plane. Full of humor and sharply observed characterizations, Half of Heaven continues Gutiérrez Aragón's fascination with the idea of "compromise," understood in the Spanish context to be a necessary retreat from singleminded devotion to some goal or ideal. Rosa attains a measure of happiness only when she finally becomes capable of balancing the many forces--
sexual, political, even supernatural--that lay claim to her soul. (1986; 130m)
Thurs Dec 24: 4:15 and 8:50;
Sat Dec 26: 4 and 8:30;
Tues Dec 29: 2
DON QUIJOTE
The great Fernando Rey--known for his extraordinary work in such Buñuel masterpieces as Tristana and That Obscure Object of Desire--gives one of his richest, most deeply felt performances in this wonderful new adaptation of Cervantes' incomparable classic. As directed by Gutiérrez Aragón, this Quixote is earthier, more human-scaled than earlier versions; before a symbol or a metaphor, Rey's knight is a man, buffeted by his physical age, the upheavals of changing times, and the distance between his ideals and their realization. While certainly faithful to the spirit of the original, this take on the "impossible dreamer" offers not merely an excellent staging of the novel but a fresh, provocative reading that shows how startlingly contemporary he and his quest remain.
(1992; 310m)
Part One (145m)
Sun Dec 27: 4
Mon Dec 28: 2, 5 and 8
Thurs Dec 31: 2
Part Two (165m)
Sun Dec 27: 7
Wed Dec 30: 2, 5 and 8:10
Thurs Dec 31: 5
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