SPANISH CINEMA NOW
WEDS.-TUES., DEC. 8-28
THE FIGURE OF Luis Buñuel looms large over the history of Spanish filmmaking, his scabrous wit, sexually charged surrealism and passionate anti-clericalism object lessons for every director who followed. One disciple of Buñuel's, much beloved in Spain but little known here, is Fernando Fernán Gómez.
Gómez's The Strange Trip (1964; released in 1969) plays like a reel of Buñuel outtakes, a series of scenes, each possessed of a different tone and feel, bound together by a savvy, faintly mocking tone. In a grand old house, the largest in a small town, Ignacia (Tota Alba) lives with two sniveling toadies, who wait at the table for her indication to begin eating. One stormy night, they sneak out of their rooms and think they spot Ignacia (whose appearance onscreen is often heralded by fright music) accompanied by a mysterious visitor. "Maybe it's ectoplasm," one of them helpfully offers. Meanwhile, in a dancehall, a fetching aspiring model in a form-fitting dress dances salaciously to a traveling band's jazzy rhythms, surrounded by sexually suggestive advertisements and stern, disapproving church biddies (Gómez is as dedicated a church-hater as Buñuel ever was). Part murder mystery, part passionate (albeit coded) indictment of the Franco regime, The Strange Trip is a fabulous oddity.
Journey to Nowhere (1986) is a more constrained effort, a parable of the actor's lot in the era of the motion picture. A troupe of traveling players wanders the small towns of Spain, putting on domestic dramas and invite-the-vicar-to-tea high-society farces for ever-dwindling crowds. Carlos, the lead actor, is joined by his slack-jawed yokel of a son, who briefly catches the acting bug before moving on to other, more sensible pursuits. Carlos' powerful speech to a gang of threatening locals about people needing actors to live is Journey to Nowhere's secret heart, its moment of truth in a farcical parade of pathos. "Damn the father of the Lumiere brothers!" cries one actor in a moment of high dudgeon, and the film betrays a similar anxiety about the film projector's replacing the experience of live theater.
The Archimedes Principle, directed by Gerardo Herrero, is a disturbing snapshot of the Spanish white-collar classes, and the rapaciousness of career advancement. Two couples, each made up of one rapidly ascending and one floundering partner, rejigger their relationships in the wake of professional success, or the lack thereof. Possessed of a firm grasp of work's capacity to bring joy and personal fulfillment to its beholder, as well as its ability to utterly blind those same people to its devastating impact on their personal and family lives, Archimedes is appropriately of two minds about the blessings of the workplace.
Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, 165 W. 65th St. (betw. B'way & Amsterdam Ave.), 212-875-5601; call for times, $10, $7 st.
