Synopsis: In a small spanish town, a group of old ladies decide to celebrate Christmas Eve with a “Sit a poor man at your table” dinner: each wealthy household of the town will have a homeless person dining with them that night. The celebrations also include a parade, and in it we find Plácido, the humble owner of a three-wheeler, whose family is forced to live in a public lavatory because of the lack of money to pay the rent, and who has to pay the second bill of his vehicle before midnight or else he will lose
In the 13th century there existed a legion of evil knights known as the Templars, who quested for eternal life by drinking human blood and committing sacrifices. Executed for their unholy deeds, the Templars bodies were left out for the crows to peck out their eyes. Now, in modern day Portugal, a group of people stumble on the Templars abandoned monastery, reviving their rotting corpses to terrorize the land.
In a remote valley of the Aragonese Pyrenees the legend of Armugan is told. It is said that he is dedicated to a mysterious and terrible profession, the likes of such that no one dares to speak. They say that Armugan moves through the valleys clinging to the body of Anchel, his faithful servant and together they share the secret of a work as old as life, as terrible as death itself.
Celia, an 11-year-old girl, studies at a convent school and lives her mum, a 30-year-old widow. The arrival of a new classmate hurls Claudia into adolescence.
11 wins & 40 nominations. San Sebastián International Film Festival 2020 Winner – Dunia Ayaso Award
Quote: Schoolgirls shares much with Summer 1993 apart from being set just one year earlier. As in the earlier film, scenes that feel like carefully reconstructed screenwriter memories play out with a quasi-documentary spontaneity and freshness; the scenes featuring children only (they were apparently given no script) are easily the most memorable, with one in particular moving credibly from joy to disaster in just a couple of entirely compelling minutes. The performances from these young actors are terrific when taken separately, but what works best is the dynamic between them, and some of the looks that these dark-eyed girls exchange are so rich that they are little movies in themselves.
As with 1993, the social background is also key. The script is sharp to pick up on the fact that in the playground, for example, these girls are singing rollicking sailor songs that reflect none of their own experience while reinforcing sexist values. “How do we know that God exists?” asks Celia, and her mother replies, “Just because,” while the repressive approach to sex at school contrasts with the liberal attitudes in the teen mags the girls start to read. In 1992, Spain was still far from shedding the Francoist legacy, and the country’s struggle for the souls of these youngsters at times feels tantamount to child abuse. – Jonathan Holland /Hollywood Reporter
Quote: Short film in black and white directed by legendary Iván Zulueta as practice for the second year of the Official School of Cinema (Escuela Oficial de Cine). Despite not appearing in the credits, the story is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Oval Portrait”. Shot in 35mm.
This is Zulueta’s first professional film job (previously, with just 20 years old, he had filmed La fortuna de los Irureta in super 8 as an amateur).
The Wishful Thinkers, Jonas Trueba’s virtually home-made follow-up to the altogether less interesting Every Song Talks about Me, is a black and white celebration of open-handed film making as well as of those old chestnuts: art and life. This black and white portrayal of a group of young Spaniards who share an innocent, unconditional love of film has become something of a cult item amongst film literati in Spain with an inevitably lengthy run of festival screenings likely to extend its appeal to those in the know.
An on-screen text opens things by stating that the film will seek to be transparent, which it pretty much achieves. Wannabe scriptwriter Leon (rumple-haired Francesco Carril) lives with wannabe actor Bruno (Vito Sanz) in the center of Madrid, leading the quasi-bohemian lives of twenty-somethings everywhere – pulling all-nighters in bars talking about life, love books and having no money. Early on, we meet the Swiss Lilian (Isabelle Stoffel), who’s decided to return home because there is no work for her in Madrid, but the rest of the characters are indeed wishful thinkers. Perhaps the most entertaining is film bookshop owner Perucho (Luis Miguel Madrid). A wishful thinker of romance, Leon also strikes up a hesitant relationship with Sofia (the relatively well-known Aura Garrido), and together they explore Madrid by night. Trueba reinvents the capital as a film maker’s city, and many locations will be recognizable to any lover of film who has ever spent even a couple of nights there. But the film is also shot through with an air of nostalgia for the golden, pre-digital days when, for example, projectionists had a role to play: at one point, Bruno walks out of a screening to complain that the print he’s watching is surely damaged. “It’s Blu-Ray,” the projectionist informs him. In the main, the actors are playing people like themselves, which gives their dialog, largely improvised anyway, a fresh, unrehearsed quality. What could so easily have become ponderous and pretentious never does, since Trueba seems determined to keep things grounded and lively. Several sequences, including one where Leon means the real-life director Javier Rebollo – a darling of the Spanish arthouse who’s duly adored by Bruno to the extent that he dreams about Rebollo – are laugh-aloud entertaining. Performances are quietly persuasive, their apparent spontaneity underwritten by Santiago Racaj’s (incidentally Rebollo’s regular d.p.) intimate, quasi-documentary and strikingly shadowed camerawork, with only Garrido occasionally coming over as over-stated and theatrical. Music – including a grungy full-length song by El Hijo – and onscreen text by thinkers and poets including Emily Dickinson – are also thrown into the mix. But Trueba’s eye for the telling image – a slow, long shot of three friends making their early-morning way home across Madrid’s Plaza Mayor is especially evocative – reveal that there is a careful, controlling eye at work. Although there’s no screenwriter or editor credit, things are not as haphazard as they seem. The Wishful Thinkers is cinema of the self-reflexive kind and viewers are continually reminded by people holding clapperboards and microphones hoving into view that they’re watching a film about its own making. The effect is sometimes wearisome, as are several oh-so-long shots and its tendency to wordiness over its final reel. But it does mean that the film can itself stand as the affirmation of what its characters so badly want to believe – that it’s still possible for young, creative people to make exactly the kinds of films they want to make. Particularly in a Spain where the film industry is currently under direct threat from poverty, piracy and politicians, The Wishful Thinkers is an affirmation that deserves to be seen. The film is dedicated to Fernando Trueba, the director’s one-time Oscar-winning father, without whom presumably none of this would have been possible. Cast: Francesco Carril, Aura Garrido, Mikele Urroz, Vito Sanz, Isabelle Stoffel, Luis Miguel Madrid Director: Jonas Trueba Director of photography: Santiago Racaj Production designer: Miguel Angel Rebollo Editor: Marta Velasco Sound: Victor Puertas, Eduardo G. Castro
Wonderful, simple story of a young lad growing up in his rural surroundings, more or less in the line of `El Sur’, Erice’s little masterpiece produced just two years earlier. Armendáriz achieves an intense and intimate portrait of Tasio and the people around him without any over-dramatization, using simple but effective dialogue, careful characterization, and of course the brilliant photography. Tasio learns to eke out a living making coal, really charcoal-making for domestic use. Wood is piled up into a great heap, maybe three or four metres high and up to eight metres diameter, and set alight in the inside so that it burns very slowly. The `carbonero’ – Tasio – must attend this smouldering heap by climbing up on it and poking and prodding holes deep into it so that there is a minimum of ventilation. You can still find some examples of this old craft in rural parts of Spain even today.
At times the dialogue may be a little difficult because of marked regionalistic accents; although Spanish-speaking, the profound Basque influence is highly evident. The film in fact was made just outside the Basque Country (Euskadi), in the extreme west of Navarra (Navarre) around the villages of Aranarache, Eulate, Urra, Baquedano and Zudaire, villages forming the area known as Améscoa; indeed you can often see parts of the beautiful Sierra de Urbasa, its heavily wooded slopes with clear little rivers. An absolute must for those who love good walks… just 40 minutes by car from where I am now. This is not an action film: it is a beautiful portrait of rural people living rural lives with just that touch of tragedy present in these Spanish films looking back at the 50s and 60s, similar to films like `Las Ratas’, `El Abuelo’ and `La Lengua de las Mariposas’. -IMDb review by Keith F. Hatcher
Synopsis: In this bizarre psychological thriller, a handsome young boy (John Mouder-Brown), who is marred by a strange birthmark on his face, tells a disturbing tale about how his family died. The family had been living for some time in a villa which was overgrown with flowering vines. Some of the vines even penetrate to the inside of the house. It seems that the boy’s father, (Fernando Rey), was part of a conspiracy to kill Hitler, and when the plot failed, he was forced to kill his family in order to prevent them from suffering horrible torture. Unable for some reason to kill himself, he escaped but became the victim of amnesia after a motorcycle accident. When a German governess came to stay, his father’s memory is revived. The boy travels to Germany in pursuit of the governess and learns that her family seeks vengeance from his father.
A baby is left at the gates of a monastery. The monks attempt to find a home for it, but end up deciding to raise the boy themselves. However, in the process, they end up offending a high-ranking official in the local town, who resolves to have the monks evicted. Several years later, the boy inadvertently causes chaos at the town fair, and the official (now the mayor) uses the event to force the eviction. With only a month left in their home, the monks need a miracle. And it is then the boy discovers a crucifix in an upstairs room in the monastery…
Quote: My Mexican Bretzel opens with black-and-white clips of pilots during World War II in Switzerland, subtitled with excerpts from – so we are told – the diary of Vivian Barrett. She talks about herself and her husband Léon, who partly lost his hearing in an accident with his plane and could no longer fly. The couple’s glamourous life then unfolds in diary excerpts and footage shot by Léon, about whom we also learn that he developed a successful anti-depressant, and had an obsession with many different forms of transportation.
The painstakingly edited home movies accompany Vivian’s thoughts and observations, and more abstract visual material represents her fears, secret desires and tormenting dreams. She frequently quotes the Indian guru Kharjappalli, who keeps her going in times of uncertainty and emotional turbulence. Sound is used cleverly and with restraint, reinforcing the images or underscoring the emotions. We realise that the viewer is being manipulated, but to what extent only becomes clear at the end.
IMDb review: Although it isn’t too surprising that “Rapists At Dawn” is banned in it’s native land, I’m not sure why it isn’t available elsewhere. It’s counterparts, like “Last House On the Left,” “House On the Edge of the Park” and “I Spit On Your Grave” etc are out there for commercial consumption. What makes Dawn more disturbing isn’t the graphic nature, as the film never ventures into hardcore territory; but the sheer amount of rape and violence. This is one nihilistic and angry film. The four youths depicted are like a gang of hyenas, raping and beating random women with utterly no sense of guilt or remorse. And it just goes on and on. Women, always attractive, with beautiful bodies, are beaten, whipped with belts and degraded in every way imaginable. One girl is gang raped until she is bleeding from her vagina, and the gang of thugs walk away laughing when they have finished satisfying themselves. This movie is supposed to be some political allegory on the level of violence among youth during that time, but the scenes of brutality are filmed in a voyeuristic way that seems to be designed to sexually arouse the viewer. If this were straight forward porn, it would actually be less offensive, because it would be written off as adult entertainment, But because it is a legitimate film, it must be taken seriously.
As a fan of violent, grind-house cinema from this period, I quite like “Dawn Rapists.” It is even more powerful and well-made than some other movies in it’s genre. Sadly the copy that I have doesn’t have English subtitles, and there doesn’t seem to be any available. I’m surprised because there must be a cult following for this. In fact, due to it’s rarity, and troubled history, I wouldn’t be surprised if some consider this movie the ‘Holy Grail’ of rape films.
A high-class call girl witnesses her neighbor disposing of his wife’s body. The man kidnaps her and forces her to help him. An unexpected relationship develops.
Letterboxd review Quote: ★★★½ Watched by Karl 17 Aug 2021
No One Heard the Scream is an apt title as it’s unlikely any audience members will be screaming. That’s not a knock against it at all. I was pleasantly surprised that this subverted my expectations. This being an Eloy De La Iglesia film I should’ve known better. Every film I’ve seen from him has had a distinction of a signature director aka an auteur. Two neighbors in a practically abandoned apartment complex meet cute, actually NO, more like meet MURDER. They end up on a road trip to dispose of a body. There are some excellent Hitchockian elements involving the trunk of a car and the police. About an hour in I started to get a little frustrated because it wasn’t giving me any horror. Once I adjusted my expectations I was able to enjoy the ride. It’s beautifully filmed and the leads are charming and cute (in a twisted way) together as they play a game of cat and mouse while also flirting. De La Iglesia was gay and he makes sure to give us some homoerotic gaze in the form of a shirtless guy with a washboard stomach. How fun! As we come to the end of our story it seems we might have a happily ever after finale. Not quite. To my surprise in the end I didn’t SCREAM but I did GASP.
Quote: Private eye Al Pereira was one of Jess Franco’s recurring characters – in fact, maybe his only recurring hero. A genuine noir type who always accepts cases he should have let pass, who always loses his heart to the wrong floozy fatales, who usually comes out of a case worse than he went in, he was introduced in 1962’s “077 Operacion Jamaique” with Conrado San Martin playing the part. Then Eddie Constantine took Al around the block in 1965’s “Attack of the Robots,” followed by Howard Vernon in 1972’s “Les Ebranlées” and Olivier Mathot in 1975’s “Midnight Party.” After two test drives as a similar character named Al Crosby in “La chica de las bragas transparentes” (1981) and “La noche de los sexos abiertos” (1983), Antonio Mayans resurrected the role and became its definitive interpreter in this movie. It was followed by four other adventures – the last being Franco’s very last film, the recently released “Al Pereira vs. the Alligator Ladies” (2013).
The story is simple enough to follow: Al Pereira is hired by Lina (Candy Coster, who is Lina Romay in a blonde wig, so Lina playing Candy playing Lina), the wife of a wealthy man, to recover some compromising photos. She has sex with him by way of a retainer. In the course of his investigation, Al is obliged to commit a couple of murders… and he’s left holding the bag when Lina turns out not to be what she seems to be.
Hardcore porn was not permitted in Spain until 1983 and Franco is credited with initiating that trend with his movie “Lilian la virgen pervertida.” This movie was shot earlier and is generally thought to be softcore, but an actual viewing establishes that it contains a single hardcore shot. It’s not an explicit penetration shot, but a closeup of Lina’s ass grinding away with Mayans’ balls straining against her – lit to eliminate any graphic view of the penetration. Since this movie was released in 1983, it’s possible that Franco did what he did with “Lilian” – which was to shoot a modest amount of additional hardcore footage to give the feature that much more of a commercial edge. Since there is a margin for error either way, I am going to err on the safe side and label this as XXX.
Quote: Beautiful Eva, hermaphrodite from birth, with clear signs of both sexes, under the strict guidance of his uncle, Professor, masters the secrets of sexual energy, which give the possibility of a Superman. But an angry gangster steals it, with the help of a doctor-villain to move into the body of eve and take over the world. He tries to prevent his rival, who is going to deprive the girl masculinity and thus not to let it turn into Superman…
Quote: This is one of the most weird, bizarre and oscure movies from Spain. Very hard to find nowadays and a total masterpiece for the collectors of hidden spanish gems.
The plot is about a man, Salomon, living in a hermit in the forest. He scaped from a concentration nazi camp and falls in a house in the middle of the mountains where a strange family lives there.
Illness, Sex, Homosexuality, rape, violence… rated “S” in Spain in those years.
The quality is very good and this is the uncut version, 95 minutes. Only for lovers of strange movies.
