Spanish Cinema Now. 8.

Last Saturday afternoon, the Spanish Cinema Now series offered a one-time-only screening of one of the "damned" Spanish silent films. No - this was not very early Visconti. Rather, as the gentleman Jose Maria Prado, director of the Ministry of Culture, Spain, who graciously and informatively introduced the film explained, "damned" was the expression (and a good one I'd say) for films that - for whatever reason - failed to ever find a theatrical release. Many of these may still languish in vaults somewhere, I suppose, but now, at least, we've had the opportunity to see The Sixth Sense (El Sexto Sentido).

Nearly 75 years later, M Night Shyamalan's formula - a bit of boredom followed by a surprise twist - has nothing on this enchanting and funny movie that, at just over 70 minutes, combines a budding boy-wins-loses-wins-girl romance with the tale of a professor who professes to have found a way to capture - not just life but truth! - via moving pictures. Comedy, philosophy and depression follow - and all because of a deadbeat dad who demands to go to the bullfight. How do you say plus ça change in Spanish?

The movie, written and co-directed (with Eusebio Fernández Ardavín) by Nemesio M Sobrevila is full of fun and the occasional avant-garde detail, moment or idea. Maybe these, more than anything else, relegated the film to its "damned" status. (Or else Catholic Spain of 1929 was not quite ready for the bizarre connections the movie gamely makes.) Adding immensely to our enjoyment of this silent flick was the live piano accompaniment provided by Carolyn Schwarz.

One of the SCN's more unusual and stylistically serious films is young Catalan filmmaker Pere Vilà i Barceló's Railroad Crossing (Pas a nivell). It took me a while to get used to the grainy, slightly-unfocused visuals, as well as to rarely being able (for the first half hour, at least) to get a good, close look at the main character, who seems intensely alone. I thought he had just graduated from something comparable to our high school, but the program notes informed me that it was university.

This character, Marc, played with a near-placid stoicism by a tall, good-looking and rangy young actor named Marc Homs, seems to have no friends and only a cursory connection with his family and co-workers. He's a major "loner" in the making. We see Marc at home, at work, vaguely propositioning a prostitute, masturbating in the shower, even being forced into learning dance steps from his grandmother - all with the same fogged-glass exterior that manages to hide any feeling, if indeed much feeling exists. Then, in one very strong scene, we see it.

This scene, together with some other moments in the movie called to my mind last year's La Soledad by Jaime Rosales. But Railroad Crossing is nowhere near as accomplished a work, though it shows promise and a welcome rigor. Toward the end, Marc even seems to have made a connection - two, actually - that might induce some positive feelings. In both cases, the camera remains so far away from the event that we can't really tell. Then he and we go back to his daily routine which is beginning to bore us as much as it bores him. Suddenly, in the midst of an odd, perhaps first-time event, the movie ends. I will be interested in watching this filmmaker's further career, even though I occasionally had to pinch myself to stay awake during this, his first full-length film. Railroad Crossing screens again Sunday, December 21, at 4:15 pm.

Posted by dwhudson at December 18, 2008 12:23 PM