Vida en sombras

This is the one and only movie directed by the catalonian Lorenzo Llobet Gracia. The plot is about the absolutely demential story of Carlos, a fervent cinema lover whose mind is seriously affected by a complex of guilt: while he is out filming the street riots during the 18 th of July (the beginnig of the Spanish Civil War) his wife is killed by the republicans (that means the comunists). The remorse only goes away when some years later Carlos watch "Rebecca" by Alfred Hitchcock, and becoming a new regenerated man, he decides to become a cinema director.

This is one of the most astonishing films ever made. It has some scenes that it should be in the history of cinema. Like the filming by Fernando Fernan Gomez of the militias using a big roll of paper to win a positions. Or the begging of the film based on real events. The birth of the director inside the carp where the first cinematographer was showing "the train arriving to the station". Being shoot in really simple way it's amazing the proper use of the audiovisual language. The late Guillermo Cabrera Infante showed this film in a Canadian film festival in Spanish without subtitles when the projection finish the audience didn't move and they ask for seen the film again. The effect of this film in the audience is unbelievable. None a single person that has seen this rare Spanish movie could forget it. Except the main actor Fernando Fernan Gomez who never remember work on it.