Post-Bunuel Spanish cinema

After Bunuel's death, this top position of the Spanish cinema was vacant. Renowned filmmaker Carlos Saura tried to fill in the gap with his films but could not really stamp a long-lasting impression. Victor Erice, Ventura Pons, Vicente Aranda, Juan Antonio Bardem, Bigas Luna and Pedro Almodovar are some of the best Spanish filmmakers of the recent decades. Their young contemporaries like Fernando Trueba, Julio Medem, Alex de la Iglesia and Alejandro Amenabar are very young filmmakers seriously involved in filmmaking and are making their presence felt. All of them together are making the Spanish national cinema to be something for which they can be proud of. Spanish cinema, without doubt, is one of the best and prestigious in contemporary Europe film-scenario.

The films like Open Your Eyes by Amenabar, All About My Mother and Talk to Her by Almodovar, Goya in Bordeaux by Saura are some of the most talked about recent Spanish films. Almodovar's All About My Mother and Talk to Her are among the very best films in the history of the Spanish cinema. He is now leading the bunch of talented Spanish filmmakers. Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive and Almodovar's All About My Mother have won the prestigious Foreign Language Academy Awards.

Almodovar's first films were 'gaudy, bawdy and loud'. He started making films in the late 1970s, mostly in 8mm format. He was lucky in enjoying the post-Franco liberalism in Spain. The conservative Franco Era was notable for its notorious moral codes and censorship rules and restrictions. This post-1975 Era gave Almodovar the freedom to deal with themes which wouldn't have been possible earlier.

From the early 1980s, Almodovar has been making films that bear his trademark - often a person habituated to normal life is drawn into the complicated labyrinthine world of 'sub-human' people and thus makes his/her own life miserable and also of others. Almodovar 'spins soulful, spellbinding stories and creates characters that ring with life'. The Almodovar filmography includes Pepi, Luci, Bom, and Other Girls; Labyrinth of Passion; Matador; What Have I Done to Deserve This?; Dark Habits; Law of Desire; Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown; Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!; Kika; The Flower of My Secrets; Live Flesh; All About My Mother; and Talk to Her.

The ongoing film session by Zahir Raihan Film Society, focusing on the contemporary Spanish films, has been organised in association with the Alliance Francaise of Dhaka and is comprised of six films: Butterfly by Jose Luis Cuerda, Mad Love by Vicente Aranda, Intact by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Sex and Lucia by Julio Medem, The Girl of Your Dreams by Fernando Trueba and Goya in Bordeaux by Carlos Saura. Saura's biographical film Goya in Bordeaux deals with the last stage of the life of Francisco Goya, the famous Spanish painter. This beautiful film, shot excellently by renowned Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, is a visual feast and Francisco Rabal in the role of the ageing painter has presented very well Goya's split-personality and reminiscent moods.

Sabbir Chowdhury, a film activist, teaches in the department of English at Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka.