Volver a Empezar (Begin the Beguine, 1982)
Directed by: José Luis Garci
Written by: José Luis Garci, Ángel Llorente
Starring: Antonio Ferrandis, Encarna Paso, José Bódalo, Agustín González.
Written by Peter Berry
José Luis Garci’s earliest films, Asignatura Pendiente and Solos en la madrugada both represent attempts to portray the disruptive consequences that the democratic transition could have in the personal lives of middle class Spaniards. Volver a Empezar (Beguin the Beguine) is somewhat of a piece with these early works but is of a decidedly warmer and gentler tone. Read More…
Estiu 1993 (Summer 1993, 2017)
Written and directed by Carla Simón
Starring: Laia Artigas, Paula Robles, Bruna Cusí, David Verdaguer
BY RAQUEL MARTÍNEZ
Summer 1993 is the first (and to this date, only) full-length film by Catalan director Carla Simón. Last year, Summer 1993 screened in Glasgow as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, where it received the Best Film award. This was hardly surprising, as Simón’s coming of age story had already bagged a few prizes all over Europe, including the Best First Feature Award at the prestigious Berlinale. Ignoring the tense relations between Catalonia and Spain at the time, Read More…
Hable con ella (Talk to Her, 2002)
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Written by Pedro Almodóvar
Starring: Rosario Flores, Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti
BY BEATRIZ CABALLERO RODRÍGUEZ
Gender shifts in Almodóvar’s Hable con ella (Talk to her, 2002)
Winner of an Oscar to the best screenplay, Hable con ella (Talk to her, 2002) constitutes a significant shift in Pedro Almodóvar’s prolific cinematic career. In contrast with his previous films, where women always took centre stage, this time the protagonists are men. Read More…
Felices 140 (Happy 140, 2015)
Directed by Gracia Querejeta
Written by Antonio Mercero and Gracia Querejeta
Starring: Maribel Verdú, Antonio de la Torre, Eduard Fernández
BY PABLO DE CASTRO
Spain may not be the most popular country in Scotland these days – in fact it hasn’t been for quite some time now: threats back in 2014 to veto any attempt for an independent Scotland to join the EU resulted among other things in occasional calls against the rights of the Spanish fishing fleet to work in Scottish waters. The recent events in Catalonia haven’t been helpful either to improve this image of a government prone to bullying their way around. Read More…
Hermosa juventud (Beautiful Youth, 2014)
Directed by Jaime Rosales
Written by Jaime Rosales and Enric Rufas
Starring: Ingrid García Jonsson, Carlos Rodríguez, Inma Nieto
BY RAQUEL MARTÍNEZ
In December 2014, the Spanish Prime Minister ̶ Mariano Rajoy ̶ claimed that the economic crisis was ‘history’.[1] In the same year, Catalan director Jaime Rosales released Beautiful Youth, a bleak observation of the effects of such crisis on one of Spain’s most vulnerable sectors: young people. Read More…
Un perro andaluz (Un Chien Andalou, 1929)
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí
Starring: Pierre Batcheff, Simone Mareuil, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí
Making sense of Buñuel’s Un chien andalou
BY BEATRIZ CABALLERO RODRIGUEZ
Daring and irreverent, Un chien andalou sets out to break expectations and to shock viewers out of their bourgeois numbed comfort. Although a black and white, silent film only seventeen minutes long, it remains one of the most influential and celebrated short-films in the history of cinema. Read More…
Spanish Film Review Club 