With my PS3 having played up on playing Blu-Rays for ages, (yet games still work!) I decided this week to finally buy a Blu-Ray player. Trying to decide which Blu to play first on it,I remembered a Cinema of Spain viewing challenge taking place on ICM, leading to me taking the Larraz box set off the shelf.
View on the film:
The closing title in their set, Arrow present a excellent transfer, which retains the film grain,whilst the audio and colours of the print are kept clean,all backed by fascinating extras on the title.
Returning to Spain after General Franco's death for a movie the producer hoped would jump on the Emmanuelle (1974) bandwagon thanks to censorship relaxing in Spain, co-writer/(with Monique Pastrynn) directing auteur Jose Ramon Larraz comes back to a home built on his major themes and recurring motifs, shimmering in the warm,rustic colours lining Lorna's remote chateau , deep in the rural countryside that Larraz had visited in Whirlpool (1970-also reviewed.)
Working on Comic-Books and training as a fine painter before he entered cinema,Larraz & cinematographer Fernando Arribas paint the surreal sensuality of Larraz works with a mesmerising artistry that pays tribute to sensualist Symbolist painter Julio Romero de Torres, (whose art is a central part of Lorna and Triana's relationship, who attend a galley displaying his works,and read books featuring Torres's art.)
Larraz frames Torres's sensuality in the stylised longing two-shots between Triana and Lorna, the miraged figure of Chico riding through blades of grass on a pale horse, and a strikingly chiaroscuro colour coding shaded to the stages of Lorna and Triana's relationship.
Riding in his distinctive surreal eroticism with startling dream set-pieces colouring Lorna's passions for Triana, Larraz weaves the eyeful of skin and a wonderful splash of red across the gloomy ending, with a thoughtful quality in capturing the friction between the trio, (trios being a major recurrence in Larraz's work) bonding Lorna and Triana with a switching of gender roles flamenco dance the couple watch on a date,as Lorna casually touches Triana's hand, whose dressed in a mature, masculine suit, which becomes increasingly agitated the more Chico comes closer into focus.
Later stating about the cast in his autobiography that they "Looked great on camera, but didn't know how to act", (a bit harsh!) the trio give very good turns, with Rafael Machado (who lied he could ride horses to get the part,and fell off the first day,but got lucky from the only injury being a bruised ego) charging in with a rugged brute edge, which Patricia Granada has Lorna react to by falling into a maddening jealously of love, (a regular theme of Larraz) Lidia Zuazo has Triana grate on a hard-edge dominance,as Triana looks into the whirlpool at the coming of sin.
مزید دکھائیں 
