The food world was startled when Spanish uber-chef Ferran Adrià announced that El Bulli, his temple to haut cuisine and five-times best restaurant in the world, would be serving its last mind-bending supper in July 2011. Although dispensing with the diners might seem an odd move for a chef, it makes sense after watching German director Gereon Wetzel’s documentary El Bulli: Cooking in Progress. Shot from 2008 to 2009, the film is a year in the life of Adrià and his chefs. And it portrays a chef-cum-artist for whom the logical next step is his proposed culinary think tank (due to open in 2014), rather than a restaurant that serves dinner. The film opens as the whitewashed El Bulli, sunk … [Read more...] about Ferran Adrià’s lavish tale sates our curiosity, but not our appetite
film
Spain’s film dubbing: ghost of a fascist past must be laid to rest
Most ex-patriots living and working in Spain will be all too aware of the Spanish penchant for dubbing foreign-language films. Whether Spanish-speaking or not, this is enormously irritating, particularly for those of us not living in more cosmopolitan cities like Madrid or Barcelona, with more cinemas showing films in original version. The nearest big city to me is San Sebastián, which hosts an annual international film festival famed for its predilection for the avant-garde. Throughout the festival, all showings are in original version and San Sebastián is extremely proud of its cinematic culture. Yet after almost 60 years of hosting the event, there is still only one small, two-screen … [Read more...] about Spain’s film dubbing: ghost of a fascist past must be laid to rest
Spain’s Civil War film canon needs new urgency
It’s a terrible thing to have to say, but maybe the time has come for a moratorium on films about the Spanish Civil War. Last week saw the release of The Sleeping Voice (La voz dormida), an adaptation of Dulce Chacón’s novelised account of the vengeance exacted upon Republican women in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War by the Franco regime. In late 1939 in Ventas prison in Madrid, a group of women await the firing squad for having supported the Republican cause, or for having husbands, brothers and fathers who did. Among them are Hortensia, who fought with the militia and is pregnant by her husband Felipe – still at large – and who has been told she will be shot after she gives … [Read more...] about Spain’s Civil War film canon needs new urgency
Balagueró hits top horror form with ‘Mientras duermes’
Fear, panic and sympathy are emotions that Rec director Jaume Balagueró puts the spectator through in his new film Mientras duermes (Sleep Tight). We follow the twists and turns of the plot through the eyes of César, a disturbed doorman whose only pleasure in life comes from making others suffer. César knows everyone in the building and controls their every move. He isn’t your run-of-the-mill psycho-killer though; he’s more like a blue-collar villain who happens to vent his frustration on his unsuspecting neighbours. Luis Tosar, Marta Etura and Alberto San Juan breathe life into the characters that Alberto Marini has developed for this story, based on the book of the same name. Luis Tosar … [Read more...] about Balagueró hits top horror form with ‘Mientras duermes’
‘The Skin I Live In’: another Almodóvar masterpiece?
The international press has been fulsome in its praise of Pedro Almodóvar’s latest movie, The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito), with some reviewers hailing it as a masterpiece, the work of a maestro confidently taking risks, pushing the boundaries of cinema while at the same time entertaining us. With the exception of El País’s Carlos Boyero — whose loathing for Almodóvar is long-standing — the Spanish press has been equally gushing, using that peculiarly empty and baroque language employed when the writer can’t think of anything genuinely meaningful to say, but has to fill the columns: or perhaps in this case it’s simply a way to avoid spoiling the plot. Because that is where the … [Read more...] about ‘The Skin I Live In’: another Almodóvar masterpiece?
Lost at sea in the fight against digital piracy
In recent years, Spain has won itself the dubious honour of being labelled a haven for illegal downloading, to such an extent that international distributors have voiced doubts about continuing to supply the country with material such as DVDs. The government has attempted to tackle this issue with a raft of anti-piracy measures. Known as the Sinde Law, after Culture Minister Ángeles González Sinde, they were confusingly tacked onto an Economic Sustainability Law unveiled last year. The specific details of the legislation were not approved until March and Congress is expected to put the act into effect over the next couple of months. Production companies, content providers and the … [Read more...] about Lost at sea in the fight against digital piracy
A cinema industry locked in confusion
Two new films have just won the top prizes in their respective countries: Celda 211 (or Cell 211), by Spanish director Daniel Monzón; and A Prophet, directed by France’s Jacques Audiard. Both are prison dramas. Both are currently on release in Spain. Both are box office smashes. And that’s pretty much where the similarities end. A Prophet is a confidently directed, superbly acted, universal story of a young man’s rite of passage into hell; at the same time it’s an indictment of France’s brutal prison system, where a disproportionate number of Arabs are locked away, often for relatively minor crimes. Celda 211, on the other hand, is a lacklustre yarn based on a formulaic script, … [Read more...] about A cinema industry locked in confusion