My Carlos Saura discovery

My newest discovery is Spanish film director Carlos Saura. He’s not a discovery exactly since I’d seen one or two of his films years ago at the Montreal World Film Festival, one of the celebrated greats favoured by that now defunct fest. The film I remember best was Carmen, a flamenco reinterpretation of the opera and novel of the same name. Frankly, it didn’t stand out. It was only this weekend, with Criterion Channel’s deep dive into his works, that I gained a real appreciation of Saura, or at least of his earlier output, which was what was featured. (Carmen, or what I remembered from it, seems superficially lyrical by comparison.) These older films mix themes of existentialism, alienation, memory and the subconscious. They often star Geraldine Chaplin (photo), well known daughter of Charlie Chaplin who speaks in impeccable Spanish, thanks to a Swiss boarding school upbringing. (Chaplin was also a longtime paramour of Saura’s.) Here are some thumbnails: In the film Stress is Three (1960), a married couple and a male friend are driving to the beach. The problem is that it’s the husband who’s the real third wheel. In Honeycomb (1969) a couple act out games in their luxurious house but the viewer can’t tell whether their stories represent their real interpersonal dynamics. In The Garden of Delights (1970) one of the actors Saura uses repeatedly in his films, José Luis López Vázquez, is a high-powered businessman who suffers amnesia after an auto accident. His impairment, however, prevents family and business cronies from getting access to his personal fortune. In Anna and the Wolves (1973) Anna (Chaplin) is a hired children’s maid at a remote mansion with three eccentric if not emotionally damaged adult brothers vying for her affections.  In Cousin Angelica (1974) Luis (Vázquez) subconsciously slips in and out of present time to his 1930s upbringing and trauma during the Spanish Civil War. In Peppermint Frappe (1966), Vázquez and Chaplin are a doctor and nurse whose affections are at odds in a twist on the Pygmalion tale. In The Hunt (1966) four men go on a hunting excursion on a hot summer’s day where Machismo, in its original Spanish, meaning, is put on full display. 

More recently watched films:

Putney Swope: Robert Downey Sr.’s 1969 mashup of advertising and the Black Power movement is scene after scene of absurdist comedy where every character gets their eventual comeuppance.

Mysteries of the Organism: Serbian director Dušan Makavejev’s 1971 film flits between his native Yugoslavia and America in a potpourri of themes, from the philosophy of renowned psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich to political repression and sexuality, with music from countercultural group The Fugs. It’s deep alright but you wouldn’t know it from its overlayer of black comedy.  

Every Man for Himself: Jean-Luc Godard’s 1979 film features a director “Godard” – a bastard who treats his women savagely and says he makes films because “I can’t bear to do nothing.” With Isabelle Huppert and Nathalie Baye this film about an empty character is about as cynical as you can get.

Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier): Godard’s 1959 film about a French operative, Bruno (Michel Subor) on the home front during the Algerian War, is a nasty spy drama. Bruno, who thinks himself something of an intellectual, is given to musings such as “the dark blue sky reminded me of that Klee painting.”