El corazón del bosque

The film starts in 1942 when an open-air dance celebration takes place and there appears a little girl , Amparo . Eventually , ¨El Andarin¨ goes down to the dancing called ¨Romeria¨ . Several years later , 1952 , that girl , now grown-up , has become a wonderful woman , Amparo , (Angela Molina) and she falls in love with the elderly "El Andarín" (Luis Politti) . Then , her brother Juan (Norman Briski) returns after several years of exile , he is a member of the communist party and has a risked assignment : to convince ¨El Andarin¨ to leave the fighting and his hidden mountain and to get safely away from there . ¨El Andarin¨ is a mythical Guerrillero of the forties and fifties . But "El Andarín" is already someone condemned to be an aging figure of old times . This is an exciting journey to the heart of the Cantabrian forest .

The flick is based on facts and real characters about the ¨Guerrilla¨ and members of the resistance called ¨El Maquis¨. It turns out to be other of the innumerable stories to deal with dramatic deeds regarding the Civil War background and Franco epoch . It belongs to sub-genre about ¨El Maquis¨ whose main representation during the Francoist period was : ¨Espiritu De La Colmena¨ by Victor Erice and ¨Pim Pam Pum Fuego¨ by Pedro Olea ; and in the ¨Transition¨ time was shot ¨Dias Del Pasado¨ by Mario Camus that bears remarkable resemblance to this ¨En El Corazón Del Bosque¨ . It results to be slow and confuse , but contains some fascinating and attractive images . It packs a narrative with complex structure and slowly paced . In the late seventies Manuel Gutiérrez directed three very personal films , -being produced by Luis Megino- , that were well considered by critics but indifferent reception by public , these are : the political ¨Camada Negra¨ , the uneven ¨Sonambulos¨ and this their first mutual collaboration ¨El Corazón Del Bosque¨ , the strangest of his filmography . Luis Megino also produced him the following ones : ¨Maravillas¨, ¨Demonios En Jardín¨, ¨Malaventura¨ , ¨La Noche Más Hermosa¨ and ¨Mitad Del Cielo¨ , some of them starred by his fetish actress , Angela Molina . Being freely based on ¨Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness¨ who was also adapted on the famous film ¨Apocalypse now¨ by Coppola . The main problem has to face this yarn , beyond not being able to avoid falling into an excessively provoking film , is precisely derived from the coldness of its staging , which eventually become monotonous over 100 minutes of footage . Because the story needs a vibration more real than the one offered in this tiring and sometimes boring film . But anyway , its is compensated with the decent performances from main and support cast . As the splendid cast is pretty well , such as : Norman Briski as the communist member who returns to communicate him to leave the war and ignores the relations that his sister has maintained with the stubborn Guerrillero , Angela Molina stands out with his beauty and her big eyes , Luis Politti as a ¨Maqui¨ , a loser who lives hidden in the deep forest and become like a harassed beast and Victor Valverde as an orchestra musician , as well as Amparo's boyfriend and about to marry her . "Heart of the Forest" displays a colorful , though dark and foggy , cinematography by the great cameraman Teo Escamilla , Carlos Saura's regular . Being shot on location in Valley of Saja , Cantabria and Concejo of LLanes , Asturias . ¨El Corazón Del Bosque¨ has not musical score , with exception some popular songs , but it is full of birds and animals sounds heard into the deep wood .

This is a Spanish average budget production and didn't obtain enough success in the box-office . The motion picture perfectly produced by magnificent producer , Luis Megino (also screenwriter) was compellingly written and heavily directed by Manuel Gutierrez Aragon , a good Spanish movies director . Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón was born on January 2 , 1942 in Torrelavega , Cantabria, where uses to set most of films , including Valley Pas . He is a writer and director, known for ¨Habla, Mudita¨ (1973) , ¨Camada Negra¨ (1977) , ¨Maravillas¨ (1981) , ¨Demonios en el Jardín¨ (1982) , ¨Feroz¨ (1984) , ¨Visionarios¨ (2001) , ¨Todos Estamos Invitados¨ (2008) . He began working in cinema in 1973 when he filmed ¨Habla Mudita¨ with José Luis López Vazquez , this debut feature by acclaimed Spanish director deals with a strange relationship between a mature men and a mute villager and also set in rural country from Valley Pas . Manuel Gutierrez is a well recognized filmmaker both nationally and internationally, and in proof of it he won many prizes among which there are the following ones : David di Donatello Awards , Moscow International Film Festival , and San Sebastian International Festival award to ¨Demonios en Jardin¨ , Goya Awards 1987 to ¨La Mitad del Cielo¨ , Cinema Writers Circle Awards, Spain and Berlin Internation Festival 1996 to ¨Rey del Rio¨ , Biarritz International Festival awards and Goyas 2003 to ¨Caballero Don Quijote¨ , among others .

A legendary freedom fighter in the remote Alturian highlands of Spain continues his shadowy one-man campaign of survival long after the last gun shot of the Civil War is fired, refusing to surrender despite his failing health and the pleas of an old comrade to end his lonely struggle. The story loosely parallels Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', but suffers from fatally obscure plotting: unexplained events and characters bog down the energy of the film, and every other shot is protracted to the point of unnecessary tedium, presumably to let the symbolism make an indelible impression. It could have been an interesting political allegory, but for anyone not acquainted with Spanish history and temperament the results can be even more elusive than its invisible partisan hero.