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Volume 21, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 2050-4837
  • E-ISSN: 2050-4845
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Abstract

(Rodríguez 2014) stands as the most successful feature by acclaimed Sevillian director Alberto Rodríguez to date. Rodríguez and other directors of his generation have been considered responsible for the resurgence in popularity of Spanish cinema at the box office in recent years, which to a large extent derives from their transnational artistic influences. Undeniably, the Hollywood film tradition has inspired much of their work, whether in terms of their ‘glocal’ use of popular genres, such as the thriller, or their characteristic cinematic style. In , the Hollywood influence is manifest but the reason for its national and transnational success should also be located elsewhere. Apart from its indigenized use of genre, what seems to have made particularly interesting to a broad spectrum of the audience is its remarkable use of the local landscape, which also situates the film in classic art-house territory. This article will therefore consider Rodríguez’s symbolic use of rural space in a narrative in which international art-house cinema conventions and Hollywood’s global generic influence intermingle with local geographical, historical and social elements in order to produce a story with a broad national and transnational appeal. While the film’s investment in the national is evident, this feminist reading of the film will also contend that ’s take on such issues as misogyny and femicide contributed significantly to its transnational legibility.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • MINECO (Award FFI 2013-40769-P)
  • Government of Aragon (Award H23_23R)
© 2024 Intellect Ltd
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2025-09-23
2026-04-13

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On dangerous ground: Landscape, gender and genre in La isla mínima/Marshland (Rodríguez 2014)
Studies in Spanish & Latin American Cinemas 21, 81 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/slac_00128_1
/content/journals/10.1386/slac_00128_1
/content/journals/10.1386/slac_00128_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): femicide; police procedural film; rural thriller; Spanish cinema; Spanish Transition cinema; transnational cinema

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