Film Critics' Meeting on Catalan Cinema

The Camera as Pen
New Catalan Films
By Klaus Eder

Foreigners adore Barcelona. See Woody Allen (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), and Alejandro Gonzáles Inárritu (Biutiful). Local filmmakers are less impressed. Among the nine recent films presented by Catalan film critics to their foreign colleagues there was no such similar fascination for the city, its beauties, its metropolitan character (after Madrid, it's the second city of Spain).

"Guest" by José Luís Guerín

The film which went farthest away, on a sort of trip around the world, was José Luís Guerín's Guest. In 2009, Guerín had presented his film In the City of Sylvia (En la ciudad de Sylvia) at the Venice Film Festival. After its Venice premiere, the film had been invited to dozens of festivals around the world. Guerín made a strange decision: he accompanied the film (to 48 festivals). He undertook a journey round the festival circuit and probably did not see his own bed for weeks and months.

The film begins and ends on the Lido of Venice, with the lion statues being put up and twelve days later being dismantled again. That's almost the only view of a festival. José Luís Guerín left the red carpet areas and went with a digital camera to the cities in which the events took place, from Lima and Bogota, Sao Paulo and Havana to Rotterdam and Nantes, Hong Kong and Jerusalem... He visited the centers and the outlying districts and portrayed simple people who had stories to tell about themselves, about the country, the city, the history. People who know how to sing the old ballads. People with a unique view on the world. Guerín does not contrast the poverty of the slums with the prosperity of film festivals. He is curious to hear stories, to listen to songs, to discover different aspects of life.

Astonishingly, this life looks similar in different parts of the world, no matter if Guerín films in Latin America or Europe or Asia. Independent of the 'real' light, the colors, the contrasts, he uses the same adjustments: black and white and a rather pale light without sharp contrasts. One could say that this underlines a universality of life - that a slum is a slum wherever it may be. On the other hand, Guerín's images remind us every moment about the character of cinema. We see cinema, fiction, as many documentary aspects as it may have. This way of filming avoids one danger when shooting Third World misery: the danger of a filmic and cultural tourism. José Luís Guerín is far away from it. Not by chance, he includes short conversations with two filmmakers he appreciates and whose idea of filmmaking is familiar to him. In New York, he visits Jonas Mekas. And in Jerusalem, he meets Chantal Akerman, who like him does not see any essential difference between documentary and fiction.

Guest is an impressive rediscovery of a personal cinema, with a camera used like a pen. Jean Cocteau was, in one of his texts on cinema, "in favor of 16mm". José Luís Guerín shares this indirect opposition to conventional filmmaking ("Cinema is dead," he said in Barcelona). One of the cities however, which he does not visit with his camera, is Barcelona.

"Black Bread" by Agustí Villaronga

Another way of getting away is to go back to the country's history. In Black Bread (Pa negre), Agustí Villaronga (born in '53) develops the gloomy social climate in a remote mountain landscape right after the end of the Civil War. The focus on a boy (whose father will be executed for murder) allows a departure from the style of flat historical realism and the introduction of elements of horror, of magic, of mysteries and legends, as experienced by a young boy. The film may have more action than the novel of the same name it is based on, written by Emili Teixidor in 2003. Nevertheless, and in spite of a fast-paced beginning (the hold-up of a carriage and a spectacular killing), the film's keynote is a social-psychological contemplation on human characters exposed to a post-war atmosphere of mistrust, betrayal, and deception without any concrete hope for a better future. These solid qualities earned the film a lot of awards at the Catalan (Gaudí) and Spanish (Goya) Film Award ceremonies, and made it the national Oscar candidate for 2012.

A less classical, more experimental means of dealing with the recent past comes from a young first-time director, Lluís Galter. He was born in 1983, and talks in his film Caracremada about a real-life character. The name: Ramon Vila Capdevila, known as Caracremada. Ramon Vila had a long career with the French resistance against the Nazis and as a fighter against the Franco regime. At the beginning of the '50s, when the organized resistance against the Franco regime came to an end, he continued his fight, alone, in his fifties, a loner in the mountains.

"Caracremada" by Lluís Galter

This looks like a biopic, but is not at all. Lluís Galter creates a claustrophobic sense of silence and loneliness. His main "character" is nature - the mountains and the forest. To the images, he adds precisely designed sound of almost Bressonion quality. How to survive in such remoteness, expecting any moment to be discovered by Franco's soldiers? Snapping branches of a tree produce tension: Are soldiers of Franco's Civil Guard approaching or one of the few friends who are still with Ramon Vila? The daring film works in such a simple and convincing way. After a while you recognize people from their shoes, and you suspect danger hidden behind bushes and trees.

There's practically no dialogue. It's a film of gestures, of hints, without any ideology or symbolism. Caracremada may be one more film about the Spanish Civil War and the resistance; however, it shows a completely new and original perspective, by omitting all political, historical and social dimensions and focusing instead on a man who knows that he has lost the war but continues to fight, not only against Franco but also against his own melancholy.

Ramon Vila Capdevila was killed in 1963 by Franco's Civil Guard. They shot him in the heart.

Back to the Catalonia of today.

"Elisa K." by Judith Colell and Jordi Cardena

An eleven-year-old girl is raped by a friend of her father. She is extremely traumatized and represses all memory what happened. Fourteen years later, she finally recalls the incident. That's the story of Elisa K. The film has two directors who also wrote the script (following a novel): Judith Colell and Jordi Cadena. They worked together, and made two different films. One focuses on young Elisa, the other on her as a grown-up. The first part is black and white and narrates the violation with a distant view (without showing it); the second part is in color, and dives deep and without any distance into the woman's psychology. One part is directed by a man (Cadena), the other by a woman (Colell).

The quality of the first part around the young Elisa arises indeed from a narrative distance. The family's everyday life is shown, and is commented on by a narrator in voice-over. He comments on what we see, and he says what is going to happen: "Several minutes later, Elisa will be raped." That's breathtaking enough, and there's no need to seven minutes later show the rape (even considering the risk that it's never clear whether the rape actually happened). Family life continues as if nothing had happened; only for Elisa something went very wrong. In the second part, 14 years later, the trauma breaks out, Elisa breaks down in a long scene of violence, horror, self-divestiture, which is brilliantly performed by the actress Aina Clotet. She manages to completely open up her character, until you can see her soul – the result of good and long work with the director/s.

Does this make sense? Two films in one? Is it entertaining? It's not, finally it's a film about the alarming and frightening consequences of a rape. The two different points of view however allow deep insight into a brutal violation of human dignity.

Catalan cinema of these days is diverse in regard of themes and styles. Catalonia is a small part of Spain, with a small film industry (if at all). How will this go on? With big national and international co-productions (such as the animation film Chico y Rita by Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal and Tono Errando), films which may or may not be successful but tend to lose specific reference to Catalonia? Or with small Catalan films which refer to the country's history, language and culture but will hardly find a public outside its borders?

It's not only a Catalan question.

Klaus Eder
© FIPRESCI 2011

Klaus Eder works as film critic in Munich, Germany.