Currito de la Cruz

Only about 160 silent films from the Spanish silent film archives have survived the pass of time ( many only in excerpts ). Now that this German aristocrat has seen many of those, well, it can be said that this loss is relative because most silent Spanish films have little interest: they are a consecutive show of postcards, primitive films in which the directors shot simplistic stories full of clichés, a kind of newsreel with so little plot that most of the time it seems an excuse ( sometimes it even seems that the story has no importance compared to shots of the monuments or habits of the city in which the story is based ); no chance for innovation, no chance for avant-garde films ( great Spanish film directors as Segundo de Chomón or Luis Buñuel did their most important films for other countries, namely France ) -- for all those reasons, the Spanish silent cinema as a whole has little interest, only in a ethnographic way ( habits, customs, traditions depicted in almost every film ) or in an architectural way, watching how, fortunately...., those places or cities have changed with the pass of time.

"Currito De La Cruz", directed by Alejandro Pérez Lugín, is a good example of the terrible and simplistic characteristics of the Spanish silent cinema that this German count commented on a moment ago. ( Fortunately, Herr Lugín directed only three films, and his preceding film, "La Casa De La Troya" (1925) ( reviewed by this aristocrat in this modern diary some months ago ) is completely similar to "Currito De La Cruz", only changing the Galician places for Seville ones ). It's the story of a little orphan raised in a Seville convent who has a dream: to become a ... ehem... bullfighter.

The film is a consecutive show of topics that are very hard to endure, even for those ordinary tourists who go to that place every year to watch such bizarre customs; not forgetting that, as this German count said a moment ago, the plot is simplistic and only an excuse to show many Seville places ( Giralda, María Luisa Park, the April fair...) and many bullfights throughout the film ( needless to say, the actors don't know the meaning of the term "acting" ).

Besides the bullfighter and his fiancé ( a toreador's daughter that loves a rival toreador of the hero of the film, this last one another toreador... ) the film includes hundreds....nein, thousands of titles ( the director said that his film was "a novel that includes film shots".... MEIN GOTT!!!!.... is this the Spanish interpretation of the talkies?... ) that appear in the film every three seconds. So finally this German count says that Herr Lugín was too fond of shooting very long films; to watch this movie was a real torture for this German count, comparable with the one that the poor bulls suffer in the film.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count needs to feel himself totally Teutonic again.