Studies in Hispanic Cinemas (new title: Studies in Spanish & Latin American Cinemas) - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2004

In his reflections on terrorism, Jean Baudrillard states that as long as events are at a standstill, one has to anticipate and overcome them, but that the standstill can be ended by the irruption of reality. Although the symbolism of scenes of the killing of animals in films such as La caza, Pascual Duarte and Furtivos have been analysed in individual studies, this comparative study observes the common and indisputable reality of the cruelty rather than the narrative-bound symbolism of the slaughter and argues that it was this reality that constituted the true effect and meaning of the events on-screen. Subsequently, this study draws a parallel between the real animal cruelty of these Spanish films and that which has recently been perceived and excoriated by the British press in films from Latin and South America, such as Amores perros, City of God and The Dancer Upstairs, and it considers whether these responses are symptomatic of the current foreign policy of the United States and the United Kingdom.

Three of the best-known Latin American films of recent times have the absent father as a central figure. These are El viaje (Solanas, 1991), Central do Brasil (Salles, 1998) and Amores perros (González Iñárritu, 2000). These three films represent societies where the patriarchs have fallen, masculinity is being redefined, the state is useless and young men are confronted with the challenge of facing futures without the help of fathers or their national governments. Each film argues for solidarity among people in the absence of paternal figures and an effective state: however, each identifies different causes for the crisis in patriarchy and masculinity and suggests its own solutions. This article analyses the different ways in which the theme of the absent father is explored in these films. In addition, the paper examines the relationship that the texts establish between flawed paternal models and failures of national governments, and draws attention to the visions of the future that each film represents.

As a response to the dramatic changes in migratory patterns experienced in Spain in the last twenty years, Spanish cultural productions on the topic of current immigration reveal less about the real lives of the newcomers and more about Spain’s anxiety regarding its own liminal location in Europe. This paper analyses how Spanish immigration films, through a narrative plot of a failed intercultural romance, become complicit with the assumptions of differentialist racism, i.e. with the fear of racial/cultural contagion and intermixing, even when striving to show positive images of immigrants. Examples are drawn from the films Las cartas de Alou (Armendáriz, 1990), Bwana (Uribe, 1996), Said (Soler, 1998), Poniente (Gutiérrez, 2002) and especially Tomándote (Gardela, 2000) and Susanna (Chavarrías, 1997).

This article examines an obscure Spanish film, La corona negra, directed in 1951 by Argentine film-maker Luis Saslavsky and starring María Félix, and proposes a re-evaluation of established views that portray Francoist cinema as an insular, provincial and artistically conservative industry, solely engaged in the production of fascist propaganda and low-brow entertainment. In the light of this film’s multinational elements, cosmopolitan setting, and self-conscious mix of popular and art-cinema styles, and its positioning as an export product for foreign audiences, I seek to draw attention to the interplay of national and transnational elements in Francoist cinema, to the range of its operations of transcultural reinscription, and to its producers’ attempts to create markets abroad for Spanish films, especially in relation to Franco’s cultural policies towards Latin America.

Spanish Popular Cinema, Antonio Lázaro-Reboll and Andrew Willis (eds) (2004) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 260 pp., ISBN 0-7190-6283-7 (pbk), £15.99

The Cinema of Latin America, Alberto Elena and Marina Díaz López (eds) (2003) London and New York: Wallflower Press, xv + 264 pp., ISBN 1-903364-83-3 (pbk), £16.99