A View From the Crow's Nest

In his Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson salutes the politically repressed but clever Saura, dismissing his flamenco films as "tourist movies." Admittedly, the transformation is a surprise, but at bottom it's in perfect keeping with Saura's most enduring obsession, which is to capture lost time. The past obsesses the men and women of his political films -- especially Peppermint Frappé, The Hunt and Cousin Angelica. Indeed, men whose memories have been amputated by fascism's codes inevitably become violent against women, an insight unique to Saura. "The Stolen Years" would be a nice title for Saura's collected works, and "Time Regained" might serve as a group title for these recent works. For that's what tyrannies do: They steal precious time from the lives of their subjects.

As his country left censorship behind, it must have seemed to Saura that what was most precious about Spain -- Spanish art -- was in danger of being lost in the shock of the new. Best get a buried half-century of great flamenco and tango artists recorded now, before the present moment becomes nothing but more time lost. As Spain has enjoyed a relatively cloudless quarter-century under Juan Carlos, and Saura managed to torpedo Franco's tyrannical underbelly quite effectively when the old general was alive, it would be false to keep restating the themes of his youth. Why dwell on the past? Why not capture the present, for a change? By taking on such classical disciplines as flamenco, Saura is volunteering to subvert an even higher dictate than any political order. He's submitting to the yoke of Spain's richest traditions, using his freedom to rebel, in a spirit of pure play, against what he chooses, and to imprint upon Spanish eternity the personal stamp of his understanding and experience.