Saturday 31 August 2013

The Carlos Saura Challenge: a recap

Image taken from here


Due to the combination of a stressful situation at work and family circumstances, I’ve been away from the blog for longer than I would have liked. 
    Rather than continuing the Carlos Saura Challenge within the set time limit of a year (which may have been unrealistic from the start, given the number of films), I’m going to continue without a set end date but with the aim of covering 1-2 films each month. Aside from filling in a gap in my own knowledge, the Challenge was meant to lead up to the release of Saura’s next film, Guernica, 33 días – however, that film has continued to have funding problems (it had already had its production delayed a year) and with the death of producer Elías Querejeta a few months ago, the film’s future does not look any less precarious. So in that sense (given that the film is still in pre-production – Saura has been directing theatre in the meantime) the time scale does not matter so much.
   Since I started the Challenge in February, a few more of Saura’s films have become available on VOD and/or I’ve tracked down a couple more on DVD, so I thought I’d amend the list from the first post: if a title in the list below has ‘VOD’ next to it that means that VOD is currently the only way to view it;  ‘+VOD’ signifies that means that it is also in circulation on DVD; nothing next to the title means DVD only (I’ve indicated if a film is completely unavailable). The majority of the DVDs seem to be currently OOP, but I have found most of mine on either ebay or amazon.es.
   All relevant posts are / will be tagged ‘Carlos Saura Challenge’ so they can be found together – film no. 10, Cría cuervos, is due to be covered next (although you can find Fiona Noble’s take on here already), but you’ll see that one of Saura’s earlier films, La madriguera, is now available on VOD, so I may go backwards first – but one or other of those films will be covered in September.
As usual any English titles in square brackets are my own translation (otherwise the title shown is the official English language title). The dates given refer to the Spanish theatrical release.

38. Guernica, 33 días / Guernica, 33 Days (in pre-production)
37. Flamenco, Flamenco (2010) +VOD
36. Io, Don Giovanni / I, Don Giovanni (2010)
35. Fados (2007)
34. Iberia (2005) VOD
33. El séptimo día / The Seventh Day (2004)
32. Salomé (2002)
31. Buñuel y la mesa del rey Salomón / Buñuel and King Solomon's Table (2001)
30. Goya en Burdeos / Goya in Bordeaux (1999) +VOD
29. Tango (1998)
28. Pajarico / [Little Bird] (1997)
27. Taxi (1996)
26. Flamenco (1995)
25. ¡Dispara! / Outrage (1993)
24. Sevillanas (1992) [currently unable to get a copy]
23. ¡Ay, Carmela! (1990)
22. La noche oscura / [The Dark Night] (1989)
21. El Dorado (1988) VOD
20. El amor brujo (1986)
19. Los zancos / [The Stilts] (1984)
18. Carmen (1983)
17. Antonieta (1982) [only available on R1]
16. Dulces horas / [Sweet Hours] (1982) VOD
15. Bodas de sangre / Blood Wedding (1981)
14. Deprisa, deprisa / Faster, Faster (1981) +VOD
13. Mamá cumple 100 años / [Mama Turns 100] (1979) +VOD
12. Los ojos vendados / Blindfolded Eyes (1978) VOD
11. Elisa, vida mía / Elisa, My Life (1977) +VOD
10. Cría cuervos / Raise Ravens (1976) +VOD
09. La prima Ángelica / Cousin Angelica (1974) +VOD
08. Ana y los lobos / Ana and the Wolves (1973) +VOD
07. El jardin de las delicias / The Garden of Delights (1970)
06. La madriguera / Honeycomb (1969) VOD
05. Stress-es-tres-tres / Stress is Three (1968) [unavailable]
04. Peppermint frappé (1967) +VOD
03. La caza / The Hunt (1966) +VOD
02. Llanto por un bandido / Lament for a Bandit (1964) 
01. Los golfos / The Delinquents (1962) [unavailable]