Law of Desire... Amantes/Lovers: A True Story (1991), Vicente Aranda

Before Almodóvar, there was Aranda and this is the ninth of Victoria Abril's thirteen collaborations with the Catalonian director and it is a film which leaves you devastated and grasping for meanings. Aranda is such an interesting director of women's stories and in every film I see women at the forefront of the purpose and the message. Even after the end of the Franco regime, Vicente continued to examine the role of women under the strictures of the previous forty years and Amantes is rightly regarded as one of his, and Spain's, finest films of the nineties.

The basic premise is the choice one man must make between two extremes of womanhood and the crimes he must commit if he goes one way of the other – betrayal is unavoidable either way. Set in the Spain of the early 1950s when the original “true crime story” took place, it features Jorge Sanz as Paco, the young man with the choice. His fiancée Trini (Maribel Verdú) is the catholic, rural home-maker, quiet and dignified and yet with a will of steel to match her principles of life, love and religion. Luisa (Victoria Abril) on the other hand, is a very modern woman, of the city and at one with its vices, including crime. She dominates Paco sexually – he is the object of attraction in the film and not the two beauties he is between and this is very well done by Aranda, inverting the sexual power relationships just as he highlights the limited choices available to either woman at the time.

Paco is entitled and simply not focused on the same desperate realities as the women… he’s deservedly a sex object but one on whom the women project their desire and the life they hope to lead. This is not to say that he is without feelings he just can’t shake the normality of the moment and when he does it’s entirely at the behest of both his competing lovers.

The film starts with Paco, fresh out of his army service, visiting his long-term girlfriend, Trini, who works as a maid for his commandant (Enrique Cerro) and his wife (Mabel Escaño). She is beautiful and a home-maker, ideal for him and yet she refuses to consummate their relationship until they are married. Paco also needs to provide and ends up going to Madrid to find work although he quickly finds a means of satisfying his frustrated desires in the form of his new landlady, Luisa who greets him eating candy and covered in Christmas decorations, an earthy, corporeal counter to his virgin fiancée.

Their first sex scene is feral and daring with Aranda later explaining that he discussed the choices with his two actors and it was Sanz who came up with the innovative use of a towel by Abril’s character. It’s transgressive but on purpose and anyone who finds this overtly sexy needs to re-examine their attitude towards the use of soft fabrics in the home.

Sadly, work doesn’t entirely suit Paco and after failing a job or two he becomes a kept man and increasingly caught up in Luisa’s criminal side lines. Yet his plan is always to return to his intended as this is what has been planned and he feels an obligation as well as affection for the younger woman. Inevitably, it will not be possible to satisfy both of his lovers and once they know of each other’s existence, a battle begins which, whilst initially having the trappings of a romantic comedy, soon delves into the darker depths of both women’s desires…

Dusty Verdict: Aranda pulls you into the depths of these characters’ lives and delivers a film that stays vivid in your mind even weeks later. The performances of Abril and Verdú are both astonishing, so febrile and nuanced with the fire of still waters running even deeper than the surface passions they display. It’s a visceral watch that leaves you in that uncertain space between watching and wanting to avert your eyes from certain scenes… not because they are graphic but because it feels intrusive and you ultimately care for these characters.

The cinematography from frequent collaborator José Luis Alcaine is superb and captures the stark differences between city and country, dark, warm interiors of boudoir and rustic cool for kitchens and sparse barracks. The moments around the church towards the end are also so well shot including the unexpected snow… as if nature was intervening in the story.

Abril was originally intended to have the role of Trini and when the role of Luisa was vacated she decided to accept it. She was only 32 at the time but watching the film it’s hard to imagine better casting for either part especially as the 21-year-old Verdú who, at the beginning of her remarkable career, is very powerful in this moral fable just as Abril is, using her experience to play the older woman fighting with her for the love of a – reasonably – good man. Jorge Sanz has just the right amount of fresh-faced guilelessness in a part initially marked for Antonio Banderas who was unavailable.

Much lauded on its release – it won two Spanish “Oscars” for best film and best direction – Vicente Aranda latter said “Whenever someone wants to flatter me, they bring up the subject of Amantes. I haven’t been able to make a film that takes its place.” Any director would be flattered to count such a film among their work.

 

Jorge Sanz and Maribel Verdú

*The real life events occurred involving a couple from working class Madrid in 1949 and in La Canal, a small village near Burgos… watch the film first before finding out how much inspiration Aranda took!

Mirage and muse… Fata Morgana (1965), Teresa Gimpera and Vicente Aranda

“In Fata Morgana, Teresa Gimpera functions as a muse of this whole generation of creators. She’s the muse of Fata Morgana and of 1960s Barcelona. She was the counter-archetype of the Spanish female model of the time…”

Angel Sala, Director of the Sitges Film Festival

 

Film appreciation is like a jigsaw or dominoes or, indeed, both. I first watched The Exquisite Cadaver (Las Crueles) (1969) because it featured Judy Matheson – who I’d seen in The Flesh and Blood Show, Twins of Evil, Blakes Seven and so much more – and it became one of my favourite films given the sophistication and skill with which Spanish director Vicente Aranda, produced this most engaging and enigmatic of stories as well as the performance quality of the four leads. Teresa Gimpera was one of those four and her recent passing led me into rewatching her brilliance in The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) and from there to Fata Morgana, her first film and collaboration with Aranda.

 

Fata Morgana or Fata/Morgana or Left-Handed Fate, does not disappoint and helps to explain the broader approach of Aranda as a leading light of the Barcelona School – a left of centre cultural “opposition” to the Franco-approved mainstream centred in Madrid. The grouping included many intellectuals, writers, architects and other creators who would meet in the bars and cafes of Tuset Street and later the Bocaccio disco, which happened to be co-owned by successful model, mother and businesswoman, Teresa Gimpera. This was an artistic resistance as, obviously, direct political action was not yet possible and the subtext and symbolism of this film, Exquisite Cadaver and, especially, The Blood-Spattered Bride, enabled Aranda to critique the state in ways that the censors could not grasp.

 

This may have been only the Director’s second film but he knew what he wanted and being a man of means, was able to take chances others might not. Not only was he casting a non-actress, but the film had also been written for Gimpera by Gonzalo Suarez, as she attests in the 2015 interview among the extras of the Mondo Macabro disc. Even in her 80s Teresa had style and charm and this interview is essential viewing to all followers of Spanish and all European cinema culture of this period.

 

Fata Morgana is the Italian translation of Morgan le Fay of Arthurian legend and it also refers to an Italian mirage, visible in a narrow band right above the horizon and often seen in the Straits of Messina as what look like castles hanging in the air. This varied meaning reflects the film’s own concerns with reality and subjective experience as it wends an unconventional path from an opening set up showing comic book panels to a story packed full of so many unreliable narrators that it could even be a modern political party.

 

There is a reference to a major event in London – such a swinging influence at the time – which is traumatic but never specified – a nuclear explosion, a social revolution… a city as a murder victim; all are possible. Then the action begins with a group of young men heading on the ridge of a hill overlooking Barcelona to cut the head of a model, Gim (Gimpera!) from an advertising hording which they then take back to their digs (assuming they are students?). This begins the director’s commentary on commodification and commercialism: these lads clearly want to own an image of Gim but maybe they want to protect her too?

 

Cut to a professor (the excellent Antonio Ferrandis) using photographs of murdered women, to illustrate his talk on how some people are natural victims in search of a murderer. One of the images is of Gim and the assumption is that she will be the film’s designated victim and we will explore if her fate can be avoided. But nothing is quite as straightforward as it might seem. Is the Professor the author of this entire cycle or just an observer? And who is JJ (Marcos Martí) the man who starts off the film in cartoon form and being instructed to head off to prevent the designated victim from her fate.

 

Gim wanders the deserted streets of Barcelona and is leered at or otherwise shown interest by the men in the streets all of whom have an opinion on her plans. It reminds me of the moments in L’avventura (1960) when Monica Vitti is stared at and menaced by dozens of men in a village for no other reason than her sex and looks. The influence of the Italians is clear with this and even Fellini with the helicoptered Christ at the start of La Dolce Vita being mirrored by the “kidnapping” of Gim’s graven image. The French New Wave is also an influence from Goddard’s dystopian Alphaville – released earlier in 1965 - to Truffault’s 400 Blows (1959) and Chris Marker’s remarkable short 1962 film La Jetée*.

 

Gim decides to stay in Barcelona and goes to meet her boyfriend, Álvaro (Alberto Dalbés) who has a surprise guest who is behaving rather oddly, Miriam (Marianne Benet, a Spanish-born British actress who had featured in films in both countries) who may or may not be connected with what happened in London and what might happen in Barcelona… she certainly takes an interest in a silver fish which contains a retractable blade.

 

In truth everyone is potentially a murder and many are possible murderees, the Professor is definitely odd, appearing completely covered in bandages like the Invisible Man for a meeting with JJ in the middle of a football ground – perhaps the Nou Camp? Then he has a meeting with Gim in the park, she sells him cola like a pro and the two sit on a children’s roundabout as the meaning flows around them.

 

The film’s a fabulous guide to Barcelona with furtive walks through the Barri Gòtic showing the bullet holes in ancient walls left by the street fighting in the Civil War. In her informed audio commentary, film writer Rachael Nisbet describes the city as a kind of purgatory between reality and dream within the surreal setting an ambiguous space striving to evade the seeming inevitability of the roles assigned at the start of the film. But can we take anyone’s word for what might happen?

 

Dusty Verdict: The film’s a fascinating ride and one that will make you want to rewatch and absorb the commentary as well as the interview with Gimpera. In her first film she is grounded and superbly confident, containing the mystery that her director has set her to convey and putting her previous career to good use in modelling the impossible and the uncertain as casually as she might designer clothes.

 

Mondo have also released The Blood-Spattered Bride on Blu-ray and, it would be a dream, if they would do the same for Las Crueles to complete this trilogy of female fronted mysteries from Aranda. One day!!

 

*Co-incidence is also a feature of film appreciation and I only watched this film recently after reading about it in Christopher Priest’s book, Airside itself about the nature of reality and perception. Everything is coincidence and connection and I’m sure Vincente Aranda would have really enjoyed the works of Mr Priest who frequently made the improbable seem possible.

Rita and Lynn go swinging... Smashing Time (1967)

 

Look, I may be green but I'm not cabbage coloured...

The difference between American and British psychedelia is often put down to the former’s greater seriousness driven by civil rights and the Vietnam War, US music and film of this period was generally more earnest although that wasn’t always a trademark of quality. The Brits for their part were more flower than power with pure whimsy rather than lysergic acid often being the case. That said, Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour quickly turned into Helter Skelter and Yer Blues, the Floyd lost Syd and started experimenting with music concrete and politics. In cinematic terms there seem to have been as many lame and tame US attempts at catching the zeitgeist as British and, ultimately, if you were there you probably don’t remember anyway.

Smashing Time could be viewed as an outsider’s take but there were enough cool and talented folk involved to still make it of interest. It was also filmed in Kings Road, Camden - The Roundhouse - Carnaby Street and the surrounds and there’s a genuine psychedelic buzz even if, as was probably the case at the time, the world was still mostly set in the reality of post-war austerity as much as the funky future: there’s certainly enough “dreary” on view in the streets.

Written by the by then middle-aged scouse jazzman George Melly, film and TV critic for the Observer at this time, he certainly knew the scene and even if that was less intimately than someone half his age, he’d been there in the fifties and no doubt mixed with the young trendies as he moved from the Colony Rooms to the French or the Coach; the regular Soho haunts that are mostly still there. In the 1980s I bumped into him in the old Soho Brasserie and we talked about Ronnie Scotts, a venue he must have played so many times.

Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave

His work here is strongest in its presentation of the relationship of the leading characters played by two of the era’s great “It” Girls, fellow scouser Rita Tushingham as Brenda and Lynn Redgrave as Yvonne and. As my Gen Z daughter points out, the two are like competitive sisters, getting each other out of trouble even as they bicker and compete with the willowy Yvonne more certain of her own importance and Brenda smartly supporting her and, most often, getting her own way. Sisters, sisters… lord help the mister who comes between them.

The film starts with Brenda and Yvonne travelling down for the unspecified North to arrive at St Pancras, the first of many great locations all of which are covered in detail over at Reel Streets. The girls get a taxi across the West End crossing Weymouth Street with a view of the then brand-new Post Office Tower before heading over to Fleet Road in Belsize Park where they aim to stay. They lose their money to a tramp though and there’s a slapstick food fight in a café run by Arthur Mullard which ends up as a psychedelic mess and Brenda washing up.

Arthur Mullard

Yvonne meanwhile heads off to Carnaby Street which gives a real flavour of Swinging London full of garish signage and bright-coloured clothes. She gets photographed by top fashion taste-maker Tom Wabe (Michael York) who puts her in a newspaper as part of his series on The Girls Who Get it Wrong. Brenda buys some new – old – clothes from Mrs. Gimble’s (Irene Handl) thrift store and gets a job in a trendy shop run by Charlotte Brillig (Anna Quayle) but gets it wrong as she starts to sell the stock which was never Charlotte’s intention.

They find accommodation at 16 Grudge Street and their landlady, Toni (Toni Palmer) also gets them work as hostesses in a Soho club which involves Brenda dressing up as a rather fetching squirrel and Yvonne in evening ware. Neither has a clue about the subtext of their work and Squirrel has to come to Yvonne’s rescue when tipsy minor noble, Bobby Mome-Rath (Ian Carmichael on fine form), tries to have his evil way.

 

Lynn, Rita and Ian

Throughout Melly’s fast-flowing script there are numerous digs at materialism and the phoney rebellion against it. The girls eventually make it when their house is destroyed as part of a prank TV show hosted by Peter Jones as Dominic. Yvonne takes their winnings and buys herself into a career as a pop star, singing a suitably empty song about not being able to sing etc. The songs are all written by Academy Award winner (for Tom Jones (1963)) John Addison with Melly providing most of the lyrics and the two leads singing

Yvonne is a huge success with Jeremy Tove (Jeremy Lloyd) plotting out her future in the fast-moving world of hear-today, gone tomorrow but when he calls in super-snapper Tom Wabe, he renews his acquaintance with Brenda and, whisking her away to his house boat in the Regents Street Basin he takes the photo sets that will make her the new sensation.

The girls fall out and everything comes to a head at a swinging party in the revolving restaurant at the top of the Post Office Tower which has an hilarious guest list, with actress (Veronica Carlson) and Bishop, followed by a John and Yoko alike couple, a small Twiggy-type and what could be The Fab Four carry a swami on a carpet. Upstairs we see Tove’s latest group, The Snarks, played by members of Tomorrow, who really were genuine psychedelic royalty, Keith West who had a huge hit with Grocer Jack, Steve Howe, later of Asia and still lead guitarists with Prog Lords Yes and Twink who not only went to join The Pink Fairies but played with Syd Barrett post-Floyd - perhaps the pre-eminent figure of The Underground.

 

Keith West, Steve Howe and Twink

Dusty Verdict: Smashing Time is a flawed but richly entertaining film well directed by Desmond Davis who also made Girl with Green Eyes (1964) with Tushingham and Clash of the Titans (1981) with a robot owl! In addition to catching the moment also shows the city during this period of change as old Victorian streets were transformed and modernist concrete was on the rise – the irony being that much of this is now being replaced although what is now the BT Tower still stands.

For me Rita Tushingham is MVP and is full of energy and animated invention, hopping along the early morning Hampstead Streets in her squirrel costume and making a PC on the beat laugh whilst adding moments of seriousness too, especially in her relationship with Michael Yorke’s character. Lynn Redgrave gives a broader performance being both less northern than Rita and aligned with Melly’s sense of humour.

The film performed poorly though and was described by The Monthly Film Bulletin as "A clumsy attempt to create a female comedy team…  the glossy vulgarity of Smashing Time quickly becomes as irritating as the brash musical score and the discordant colours that constantly fill the screen." It’s value as a time capsule and the intent behind a critique of what we have seen rinsed and repeated ever since do make it worth your time, just don’t expect Blow Up!

Lynn Redgrave

Michael York and Rita T at The Roundhouse

 

Toni Palmer and one of the defining images of the sixties...