A lonely, well-educated bachelor entering middle age meets an old friend he has not seen for decades, who is successful with business and women. The friend has acquired a beautiful blonde, with whom the hero is instantly and hopelessly struck. Unable to have the blonde, he recreates her in a working girl, who he dresses and makes up into a replica of his dream woman.
A familiar story? Yes, but Saura in this film takes it two grim steps further than Hitchcock in "Vertigo". First, the hero murders both the blonde and her husband, while the husband in "Vertigo" escapes judgement. And secondly, while the hero in "Vertigo" is left a life of emptiness and unassuageable guilt, in this story the hero will always risk discovery, either by outsiders or if the girl who was his accomplice betrays him.
Hitchcock's pieces could generally be transposed to another time and place, because they are not so much about a particular period or locality as about the human animal with its lusts, treacheries, and guilt. Saura, using these universal themes, roots his work firmly in one specific spot: provincial Spain after 30 years of right-wing dictatorship. Hence we get characters who represent aspects of that society:
* The conservative radiologist. Accepting the system, he has built up a practice that allows him independence and respect in the community, doing a job of undoubted benefit.
* The buccaneering businessman. After making a fortune in Africa, where few rules apply, he now hopes to conquer Spain. On the way he has acquired a glamorous foreign woman.
* The English dolly bird. Lively and sexy, her flowing hair and minidresses herald a new international world of trivia centred on music and fashion.
* The radiologist's nurse. In dull hair and clothes little different from her mother, her life choices are limited to work and marriage or work and spinsterhood.
Black humour, definitely a tribute to Buñuel (the film's dedicatee), decrees that the existential response to living in a state based on crimes is to commit more crimes. So the respectable radiologist and his nurse kill the two alien intruders. Having planned it well, they are in little danger of exposure and can continue their placid provincial life. Just as Franco's Spain hoped to bury its past and, excluding foreign influences, go on forever.
PS One of triggers to the murder of the philistine outsiders is that they mocked a poem by Antonio Machado, a staunch opponent of the régime who died a refugee in 1939.
A familiar story? Yes, but Saura in this film takes it two grim steps further than Hitchcock in "Vertigo". First, the hero murders both the blonde and her husband, while the husband in "Vertigo" escapes judgement. And secondly, while the hero in "Vertigo" is left a life of emptiness and unassuageable guilt, in this story the hero will always risk discovery, either by outsiders or if the girl who was his accomplice betrays him.
Hitchcock's pieces could generally be transposed to another time and place, because they are not so much about a particular period or locality as about the human animal with its lusts, treacheries, and guilt. Saura, using these universal themes, roots his work firmly in one specific spot: provincial Spain after 30 years of right-wing dictatorship. Hence we get characters who represent aspects of that society:
* The conservative radiologist. Accepting the system, he has built up a practice that allows him independence and respect in the community, doing a job of undoubted benefit.
* The buccaneering businessman. After making a fortune in Africa, where few rules apply, he now hopes to conquer Spain. On the way he has acquired a glamorous foreign woman.
* The English dolly bird. Lively and sexy, her flowing hair and minidresses herald a new international world of trivia centred on music and fashion.
* The radiologist's nurse. In dull hair and clothes little different from her mother, her life choices are limited to work and marriage or work and spinsterhood.
Black humour, definitely a tribute to Buñuel (the film's dedicatee), decrees that the existential response to living in a state based on crimes is to commit more crimes. So the respectable radiologist and his nurse kill the two alien intruders. Having planned it well, they are in little danger of exposure and can continue their placid provincial life. Just as Franco's Spain hoped to bury its past and, excluding foreign influences, go on forever.
PS One of triggers to the murder of the philistine outsiders is that they mocked a poem by Antonio Machado, a staunch opponent of the régime who died a refugee in 1939.