Surcos (1951)

Director: José Antonio Nieves Conde

Country: Spain

A modest family from the Spanish country side decides to emigrate to the capital city of Madrid in an effort to earn more money and become part of the post-war society but soon they struggle to survive and have to face the hostile environment of the concrete jungle: poverty, misery, unemployment and crime among other hindrances. 

 

The main story revolves around the three brothers (like in Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers, except that this one was made 9 years before): Pepé, Tonia and Manolo, whom their different ambitions corrupt their souls little by little while coping with thieves and gangsters like Chamberlein, greedy and materialistic women like Pili or with the inability to find a job due to lack of skills and techniques to perform any job in the industrial field (like the scene when their father is in a factory and he's about to faint, that sequence contains a nice mixing of images and sounds and maybe is the only highlighting moment in the editing department). 

 

We can see how Spain was a developing country at the time, living with the consequences of the Spanish Civil War and the economic impact of the Second War World. This film is considered part of the Spanish neorealism, and was shot basically without technique like many other neorealist films from the era such as Vittorio De Sica's "Ladri di Biciclette", also the ending and some parts of the movie had been adultarated and censored by the Spanish goverment and the Catholic Church but fortunately they were restored in recent years. 

 

I personally enjoyed the dark humor dialogues in the film that work very well, especifically the ones on machismo and sexism. A great Spanish film which unfortunately has been forgotten over time.

                              

María Candelaria (1943)

Director: Emilio Fernandez
Country: Mexico

Written and directed by Emilio Fernandez, the story revolves around Maria Candelaria (performed by the gorgeous Dolores del Rio) a beautiful indigenous woman and her relationship with Lorenzo Rafael (Pedro Armendariz) whose story is told by a misterious painter. The action takes place in 1909 in an empoverished and underdeveloped but beautiful village of Xochimilco. 

For some reason the villagers hate Maria Candelaria, whose mother's life is never revealed, was she a prostitute or a witch? the only thing we know is that she was killed for being a "sinner". This film could be considereded a social one despite its love story, because we can see the division between white Mexicans and the indigenous, with the former ones being medical doctors, priests, artists and bureaucrats, and the latter ones being oppressed by the system and the Catholic Church, which in combination with the indigenous superstitions and the close-minded life style they have, the results are catastrophic such as the rejection of medical care, law enforcement or artistic disciplines, and characters such as "la chismosa", "la huesera" or the ruthless "patrón" are excellent examples of it. 

The film also has many dark humor and satiric dialogues that give balance and help to keep the pace, the cinematography by the legendary Gabriel Figueroa (Los Olvidados, Macario, The Fugitive, Animas Trujano, etc) is stunning and one of the best in Figueroa's career, with a masterful use of natural light, shadows and a perfect framing we can see how beautiful Xochimilco was at the time, and the performances of Dolores del Rio and Pedro Armendariz are very accurate, because portraying indigeous characters was not an easy task for sure, there was the risk of being ridiculous or fake, but they changed their accents and manners so well and the result was succesful. 

Definitely a must-see in the Golden Age of the Mexican Cinema and one of the key films of Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez.



                               

Salvatore Giuliano (1962)

Director: Francesco Rosi 
Country: Italy

This is a dense political-social film based on real facts, shot in a documentary style following a non-linear narrative about the circumstances around the assesination of Salvatore Giuliano, a bandit and the leader of a separatist movement in Sicily, that was responsible for a massacre against members of a communist party, he only appears as a corpse three or four times in the film. 

We can see how Sicily was after the departure of the allies, an empoverished, dejected, dangerous and corrupted place controlled by the local mafia, full of street codes such as the Omerta, and curfews by the military (North Italians who look down on Sicilians calling them savages.) Shot by the legendary Gianni Di Venanzo, the film has a stunning cinematography and a  pure neorealist look . 

Amazingly this film portrays how some goverments around the world still operating nowadays!, with the help of local mafias and bandits, definitely an incredible film.

                                 

Le Trou (1960)

Director: Jacques Becker 
Country: France

For the first time in my blog I'm not writing too much about this film, I don't want to spoil anyone's experience, all I can say is that this is the best minimalistic film ever made and my favorite in the prison genre of all time, Becker only needed little dialogue, five characters and one room, so if you want to have a great night, turn off the lights, turn on your DVD player in a quiet room and concentrate on this tour de force, period.