ma-cortes
Spanish coral film dealing with a merciless denounce to hypocrite society located at a luxury mansion , being masterfully directed by veteran Berlanga and full of a high level of ingenious humor , including relentless critical but in malevolent intention . A bustling comedy with an excellent plethora of Spanish players and an interesting screenplay , being based on a story written the same director , and collaboration of his usual, Rafael Azcona . Early the seventies when in Spain takes place the replacement of Falangist ministers by Opus Dei members . There appears Jaime Ganivel (José Sazatornil ¨Saza¨) , a Catalán entrepreneur of mechanical porters along with his lover (Monica Randall) . Jaime organizes a hunting party in the mansion and countryside of the Marquis De Leguineche (the forgotten stage actor : Luis Escobar who steals the show) , located in Guadalajara , to convince some powerful people and ministers to install the automatic porters . The farm where it is organized is full of strange roles and Ganivel has to do everything to get his aims .In the flick there are especially busy comedy , ironical humor , frantic pace , joy , amusing gags , rowdy satire , noisy hustle and social critical . Furthermore , it contains certain confusion , bustle and relies heavily in exaggerated mayhem ; being in anyway clearly a superior film , a Berlanga's masterpiece . One time finished the Franquist dictatorship , Berlanga along with his regular screenwriter Azcona carry out the realization a known trilogy about the political and social Spanish situation , concerning on the peculiar aristocratic family of the Marquis of Leguineche . Shot in long , complex shots : ¨Planos Secuencia¨, with a lot of rare characters talking , shouting and walking . The main and support actors stand out under perfect direction of Berlanga very far from the tenderness that carried out in previous works , including a bitter , pessimistic mirror on the Spanish society by that time . We can find very fun roles , all of them caricatures and mirrors of the Spanish society of the seventies , concerning the national reality in ironical and critical style . The movie displays a Spanish star-studded such as : Jose Sazatornil as the egoistic Catalan manufacturer who attends with her lover on a hunt to relate to important people and in a similar role to starred in ¨Todos a la Carcel¨, Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez , Agustin Gonzalez (Berlanga's also regular), Amparo Soler Leal , Chus Lampreave (Almodovar's ordinary) , Fernando Hilbeck , Luis Politti , Conchita Montes , Laly Soldevilla , and Luis Ciges . It belongs to the third period in Berlanga career characterized by commercial and comical films , adding a point of view as critical as realist . Its big success originated 2 sequels ¨Patrimonio Nacional¨(80) dealing with monarchy restoration and ¨Nacional III¨(82) about the power rising of Socialists . Berlanga's conceptual and political audacity, so evident in this film that achieved a big hit . It turned out to be a nice picture plenty of diverting situations as well as black humor and social hypocrisy .Direction by Luis Garcia Berlanga is pretty good , he shows his skill for edition , realizing long shots with crowd who moves easily and shows the miseries of an amoral society . Evocative and atmospheric cinematography by Carlos Suarez . Berlanga filmed several polemic movies during the 50s , all of them were beset by difficulties with the censors caused by real critical to social stratum such as ¨Bienvenido Mister Marshall¨ (1953) , a very good film which tended not to be very well received by the censor for its acidity and considered to be one of the best Spanish films of the history , including a strong portrait of Spanish society and plenty of sharpness . But the main problem is that if you are foreigner you will have to know well the Spanish society to understand the double-senses . His next joint venture was ¨Los Jueves, Milagro¨ (1957), it was modified by the censors and delayed for several years before its eventual release . Subsequently , Berlanga made ¨Placido¨ (1961) masterfully played by Cassen , this is the film debut for the great producer Alfredo Matas and received an Oscar nomination in 1963 , being well-received at the International Festivals , reviewing the useless charity , it's a sublime film but with censorship realized by this great maestro Luis Garcia Berlanga . Later on , Berlanga made one of his best films: ¨El Verdugo¨ (1963), one of the undisputed masterpieces and fundamental in filmography of Luis Garcia Berlanga and shot at the height of his creativity, in a period cultural difficult, where the enormous censorship of the political regime, exacerbated the ingenuity and imagination of the scriptwriters . He continued filming other interesting pictures as in 1973 he went to Paris to begin filming ¨Grandeur nature¨ with Michael Piccoli , another problematic film , focusing this time on the fetishism of a man who falls in love with a doll . Several years later , after Franco's death, he filmed a trilogy comprising ¨La Escopeta Nacional¨ (1978), ¨Patrimonio Nacional¨ (1981) and ¨Nacional III¨ (1982), where he clarified the evident disorders in the Spanish upper , middle-class upon being confronted with a new political status quo , realizing a sour denounce of the Spanish society . Berlanga ulteriorly shot a peculiar film titled ¨La Vaquilla¨ (1985) plenty of Spanish-star-cast and set in the Spanish Civil War , resulting to be the first time dealing with this convulsive period in comedy style . Following the same themes, he went on filming coral films such as ¨Moros and Cristianos¨ and ¨Todos a Carcel¨ (1993) that won three Goya Awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Sound ; being his final film : ¨Paris Tombuctu¨. Rating : 7.5/10 . Essential and indispensable watching for Berlanga aficionados . Well worth seeing .
Harrr
Luis Garcia Berlanga provided much needed satire during the Spanish dictatorship and transition to democracy. He imbued many of his films with enough surrealism and silliness to get away with it even during the censorship happy years, and he spread his wings when democracy arrived to the country. La Escopeta Nacional is a series of events without a clear plot, simply a businessman trying to sell his goods in a chaotic setting, among all sorts of unlikely characters, caricatures inhabiting the nest of corruption that Berlanga didn't have to think too hard to imagine in Spain.The comedy was funny then and it is funny now. But now the satire has aged like a good wine, with undertones of still being sadly relevant.
