Carlos Saura, the cinematographic chronicler of the Spanish transition

the spanish director Carlos Sauradied yesterday, had released a documentary on February 3, had a project in progress and receives this Saturday autopsy And Goya career honorarium. He was 91 years old, had some health problems, but had not completely lost his enthusiasm and passion for cinema, which led him to become the most representative filmmaker in Spain for several decades.

Throughout more than six decades as a director, Saura has gone through different stages, transforming his cinema along the way. He was the author of social dramas, he was able to delve into the secrets of deep Spain, he made musicals with exquisite aesthetic care and documentaries on various themes, but history will remember him the great Spanish filmmaker of the last stage of Francoism which would lead to the democratic transition. movies like The hunt, Peppermint Frappe, Ana and the Wolves, breeding crows y blood weddingto name but a few, not only made him one of the great references of European cinema of his time – he participated eight times in the Cannes Film Festival, won the Golden Bear in Berlin, among dozens of awards – but they turned him into a celebrity, one that goes beyond their specific job.

His first fiction feature film, the gulfs (1960), co-written with Mario Camus, takes him to Cannes competition and makes him a victim of Franco’s censorship who demands cuts and delays his release, which will become commonplace at this stage of his career. Here some keys to his work from that time begin to appear: a realistic approach to the social conflicts of the time reflected in the actions of its protagonists, always on the verge of violence, which was to be central in The hunt (1966), one of his best films: the story of a group of friends from Franco’s past who go hunting in a land that was the scene of a battlefield during the Civil War, with tragic consequences.

There he began his long collaboration with the producer Elias Querejeta. It was the best stage of his career, delving deeper and deeper into the psychological and personal consequences of life under Franco’s regime. Peppermint FrappeIt is (1967), his first collaboration with Geraldine Chaplin, takes this violence to a more intimate and sexual terrain. In 1972, another of his classic titles will arrive, Ana and the Wolves, which focuses on sexual repression within a conservative family by recounting the tensions aroused by the arrival of an English governess (Chaplin). The film will know a successful continuation on a comic tone, in 1979 with Mom is a hundred years oldcentered on the matriarch of said house.

Already entering a field of psychological disturbances with more modernist characteristics – and clearly with Buñuelian influences –, in 1973 he created Cousin Angelique, winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes. There, past and present intertwine as a man reminisces about experiences from a childhood romance in the days before the Civil War. The film, strongly criticized by sectors of the Spanish far right, caused controversy in the cinemas of the country. the famous breeding crows (1976) will continue this psychological exploration by recounting the agonizing childhood memories of its protagonists. With an addition: explorations of the consequences of the Franco regime coexist with an apparently fantastic side. His best stage ended, in 1977, with Elisa, my lifeanother exploration of traumatic memories centered on a relationship between father and daughter and increasingly exploratory in audiovisual terms.

After a few more direct and up-to-date films, including hurry up (nineteen eighty one), Remains he will turn to the musical formats which will henceforth occupy a large part of his career. Starting with the famous blood wedding (1981), adaptation of a ballet by Antonio Gadesthe director has repeatedly explored the world of flamenco, completing this trilogy with Carmen (1983) y The magician of love (1986).

They are the most notable of a list that included, among others, Sevillanas, Flamenco, fado there Tango, the latter filmed in Argentina and nominated for an Oscar in the category of best foreign film. In these titles, many of them were shot in collaboration with the Italian cinematographer Victor Storaro, with whom Saura perfected an almost painterly style when performing the dance numbers. From this point, somewhat more inconsistent outside of musicals, the award-winning and hugely popular Ah, Carmen! (1990), in which he returns to Francoism through the scenario of Raphael Azcona.

The artistic and aesthetic mutations of the cinema of Remains They were a reflection of the times and the cinematographic tendencies of each moment, ranging from the neorealist inspiration of the 60s towards a more poetic cinema, with films where the exploration of memory took on more metaphorical characteristics (a model as driven by the need to dodge Franco’s censorship).

Alongside his international consecration, Saura has historically been discussed by critics in his country. And beyond the fact that his films after the democratic transition have not lived up to his classics, his work places him in what some consider the pantheon of great Spanish filmmakers with Louis Bunuel, Luis Garcia Berlanga there Pedro Almodovar. Claimed and valued by a new generation of filmmakers including Carla Simon y Pilar Palomero, Carlos Saura will go down in history as one of the fundamental pillars in the history of Spanish cinema. He is the man who portrayed the darkest and most disturbing areas of the decades of Francoism and turned them into unforgettable films.

His relationship with Argentina

His connection with Argentina was not only linked to Tango –and its controversial Oscar nomination– but also filmed here a film for Spanish television based on the short story “El sur”, by Jorge Luis Borges, with Oscar Martínez as the protagonist. He also included in his castings Argentine actors exiled in Spain, such as Hector Alterio y Norman Briski. In 2015, he made Zonda, Argentinian folklorewho did not have the impact of his film on tango.

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