Foreign Movies Movie Tv Epic Movie Great Films Good Movies Awesome Movies Bad Education Almodovar Films Cinema Posters. More information. Torrent on isoHunt When A Stranger Calls Camilla Belle, Tommy Flanagan, Katie Cassidy, Clark Gregg, Madeline Carroll. Almodovar weaves together a magnificent tapestry of femininity with. Jun 17, 2013 From two-time Academy Award(r)-winner Pedro Almodovar (2002 Best Original Screenplay, Talk to Her, 2000 Best Foreign Language Film, All About My Mother) comes BAD EDUCATION, an outrageous tale of.
If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact (publication in North America) or (publication in all other geographic locations).All requests to license audio or video footage produced by MoMA should be addressed to Scala Archives at. Motion picture film stills or motion picture footage from films in MoMA’s Film Collection cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For licensing motion picture film footage it is advised to apply directly to the copyright holders. For access to motion picture film stills please contact the. More information is also available about the and the.If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication or moma.org, please email.
If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out and send to.
Manon Hakem-LemaireWeek 2: Topic 1: The Replaying of HistoryCultural scholars have often claimed that post-Franco democracy is founded on amnesia: a willed oblivion to the horrors of Spanish history. Yet close examination reveals that the period film ('cine histórico') is one of the most important genres of Spanish cinema. This topic explores the contradictory representations of the past and their implications for the post- Franco present in films that treat Spanish history, with particular emphasis on those set in the. Francoist period.El espíritu de la colmena/The Spirit of the Beehive, by Víctor Erice ( 1973)The meaning of the beehive in El espiritu de la colmena is not limited to the father ’ s profession as a beekeeper. The beehive as a motif used to depict and reflect on the period of Franquismo (1939-1959) in which the action is set, makes a powerful metaphor. Ana, Isabel and their family, just like the whole of Spanish people, are trapped in a beehive themselves, restlessly operating for a dictatorial system, without questioning it. For instance, the austere, almost military way in which breakfast is eaten illustrate the repression of Spanish people ’ s freedom of expression in the 1940s.
The camera focuses on one actor at a time while they eat or drink. None of the family members are talking; silence is only interrupted by the sound of dishes and cutlery clattering together. The two girls maliciously smile at each other, uneasy about breaking the silence, as though doing so were a sin. In a gesture of tenderness, the father (the very experienced Fernando Fernán Gomez) deploys a little instrument which plays a lullaby. However, his face remains absolutely blank while performing this act of kindness. The camera settles on Ana ’ s look at her father, sinking in her melancholic and bewildered eyes, which always seem to ask: “ do we really have to live in that way?
1 Throughout the film, the ongoing metaphor of the beehive is reinforced by omnipresent yellowish lighting, as well as the recurring hexagon shape (e.g. The window panes). The gloomy village Hoyuelos also contributes to the feeling of claustrophobia by its own name: hoyo means hole, the suffix -uelo means small, and so the name Hoyuelos could easily mean a (god-forsaken) hole.Through the candid eyes of Ana (Ana Torrent) and Isabel (Isabel Tellería), El espiritu.
De la colmena raises necessary and fundamental questions for the 1970s: what just happened, in the two decades of Franquismo? What does replaying recent history mean for the future? What is the new nature of cinema, after it served as propaganda for Franco ’ s regime, giving a false impression of free speech?
In an interview on the film, Erice insisted on the need to find new cinematic techniques, to move away from cinema itself (with a Brechtian emphasis on artificiality, perhaps) and to create a new language for the new times ahead (Miyaoka, II, 5:20). This view is supported by the instructions at the beginning of the film “ not to take the story too seriously, ” as well as by Isabel telling her little sister that “ en el cine es todo mentira, ” 2 after they attend a projection of Frankenstein. Film critics of Erice ’ s time, such as Laura Mulvey, also emphasized the necessity to find new forms of cinematic expression, moving away from.
The Hollywoodian paradigms of causal narratives and happy endings which dominated the first part of the twentieth century.In short, El espíritu de la colmena shows rather than tells, evolving with a slow rhythm and an overall lack of dialogue. These narrative techniques give ample space for the spectator to weigh in and take responsibility in questioning the recent history of Spain, so that they can consciously choose not to censure themselves, their cinema and their own daily lives, unlike Ana and Isabel ’ s father when writing in his diary at night.References:Miyaoka, Hideyuki.
Interview with Victor Erice, Café Oriental, Madrid, 2000. URL Part I: URL Part II:, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, ” Screen 16.3, Autumn 1975, 6-18. URL: mala educación/Bad Education, by Pedro Almodóvar (2004)In a similar effort to Víctor Erice ’ s film, Pedro Almodóvar draws attention to Spain ’ s history of Franquismo with La mala educación (2004). Set in multiple timelines (Almodóvar ’ s signature technique), the film focuses on queer experience and child abuse in the Spanish religious schools of the 1950s.The denunciation of repressed sexuality and its devastating effects is particularly compelling in the river scene, when Ignacio ’ s story (in fact, Juan ’ s story) is told by young Ignacio as a voiceover. As the child ’ s voice explains, good boys at school were allowed a day swimming at the river with Padre Manolo (acclaimed Mexican actor Daniel Gímenez Cacho).
The present transitions into the past as the voiceover gives way to Ignacio ’ s singing a Spanish version of “ Moon River ” while Padre Manolo accompanies him with his guitar. The latter is ostensibly aroused by the child ’ s crystalline voice. With a disturbing expression on his face, he is shown struggling to focus on his guitar-playing while being irresistibly drawn to the child, whom he sexualizes, 1 as his pedophilic impulses are triggered. As the singing goes on, the other boys are shown diving into the river in their swimsuit, all in slow motion. The camera then. Focuses and zooms onto their clothes left ashore.
Behind the bush, as Ignacio ’ s singing fades away, something morally disturbing is happening, and so the spectator knows by the combination of sound and image brought to stillness, contrasting with the precedent flow of action. Ignacio ’ s shout “ no! ” breaks the previous enchantment and brief silence.
He bursts from behind the bush, falling face down, in what looks like a protection mechanism. Padre Manolo runs after him, hastily wrapping his cassock around his body. Blood dripping down on Ignacio ’ s face precedes the division of image into two parts opening onto Padre Manolo ’ s face (in fact, the actor playing Padre Manolo in the present, in Enrique ’ s adaptation of Juan ’ s story). The voiceover resumes with young Ignacio acknowledging an unescapable sense of division caused by the childhood episode of abuse. Padre Manolo, channeling his repressed sexuality onto the children he is responsible for, inflicted an unrepairable wound that would last for Ignacio ’ s. Lifetime, until he and Juan kill him by giving him an overdose of heroin in the 1970s (four years before the main action is set).In one of his typical non-linear and colourful narratives, Almodóvar paints a persuasive picture of the ongoing consequences of Franquismo into the following decades.
Clearly, the spectator is shown (again, shown rather than told) that the death of a junkie in the 1970s can be accounted for by the consequences of Francoist rule in the 1950s. Never assisted in their understanding the plot, spectators are given enough autonomy to slowly make the connections between the multiple timelines and the complex relationships between the characters – necessary connections to internalizing painful truths about Spain. Almodóvar ’ s slow, puzzle- like narratives are therefore more powerful than classic, linear ones, for spectator themselves own the agency of drawing the conclusions themselves. Of course, by definition, this.
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2023
Categories |