La chasse

Intense psychological drama, obviously intended as a political allegory, relentlessly exposes its protagonists' toxic masculinity, suitably staged in stark black-and-white and a overheated barren landscape, entrenched in a whirlpool of absurd moments and violence (the hunting scenes are quite hard to take).

Although I own practically half of his filmography, I have only watched three Carlos Saura (whom I saw in the flesh at the 2012 European Film Awards which were held over here in Malta!) movies so far – WEEPING FOR A BANDIT (1964; featuring a cameo from Luis Buñuel), ANTONIETA (1982; co-written by Jean-Claude Carrière) and BUÑUEL AND KING SOLOMON'S TABLE (2001); however, being aware that it was going to be Saura's 82nd birthday presently, I decided it was high time I watched a handful more. The film under review – a slow-burning but powerful anti-Fascist allegory that is all the more remarkable for being made under Spanish dictator Franco's regime! – is the one which made his name, having won him (among others) the Best Director prize at that year's Berlin Film Festival.

The plot deals with three Spanish Civil War veterans who return – after many years and with a younger relative – to their old battleground (a skeleton of one Loyalist is proudly exhibited in a nearby shed) ostensibly to hunt rabbits but, during the course of the hot, tedious day spent in alcoholic consumption and hidden agendas, old wounds and prejudices are fatally rekindled. Acting as their trapper and cook are the crippled poacher (of the landowner in the group) and his adolescent niece: their 'disdainful' status is reflected in the disease that is already decimating the rabbit population and the landowner taking on a much younger mistress after his wife left him. From the small, uniformly fine cast, award-winning Jose' Maria Prado (a familiar face from several Art-house and Euro-Cult movies) – playing the envious, trigger-happy, Sci-Fi nut of the group is a particular stand-out.

Being an animal lover, I was wary that the obligatory hunting and trapping sequences were going to be the whole show here: luckily, it was not the case but when these do come on (gleefully participated in by the landowner's black dog and ironically set to light-headed Spanish pop ditties blasting from a portable radio), they are certainly harrowing to watch: a ferret violently taunts a cowering rabbit in his hole out into the open where the hunters lie in wait for it; the same dutiful ferret is soon deliberately dispatched by the self-made businessman of the group; and, most memorably, a rabbit defiantly stops its flight for a few seconds amid a hail of bullets before being blasted off in a cloud of fur and dust.

Carlos Saura's third feature LA CAZA won him a BEST DIRECTOR Silver Berlin Bear that year at the age of 34 (a triumph he would duplicate in 1968 with his next project PEPPERMINT FRAPPE and a final Golden Berlin Bear winning in 1981 for FAST, FAST), which is quite a prescient gesture then, Saura has a comparatively prolific career, even today, this reverend octogenarian is still making his next project. LA CAZA is only my second Saura's entry, after the soul-pulverizing domestic tale RAISE RAVENS (1976, 9/10), this time he was 10 years younger, vigorously sets up a male- predominant set-to among three old chaps in a stark hunting party, an eleventh-hour outburst bookends a weathered generation's disaffection and angst, it is an unpolished bravura to pull the trigger in such a reckless manner, but no one would deny the sleight of hand of cinematography (the late DP Luis Cuadrado) and how Saura patiently paves the way for its drama layers and how he would detonate the time-bomb with eloquent narrative arc.

The film devices a plain story about 3 old friends (a fourth partaker is one friend's young brother-in-law) reunite for a rabbit-hunting expedition in the rural hillside, soon their friendship would be tested under the entanglement of money problem, peer contempt and chronic discontent, starts with a premonition of one of them cannot find a first aid kit for his wounded finger.

Before the open-space shooting, they converse from hunting rabbits to man-hunting, from natural law's priority to piranhas' metaphor for hoi polloi, one who is familiar with that particular period of Spanish history may find access to many allusions here. The actual shooting is all fly- on-the-wall, with a dozen of poor critters being mercilessly put under the camera then waits for a headshot (in the latter half, including a devoted ferret), animal activists will go berserk (not to mention skinning the carcass), the bestiality simmering underneath all the veneer and guises is appalling and guns does facilitate the trigger-happy group.

Voice-over and close-ups are two frequent instruments punctiliously deployed here, the alternatively intensive and exotic score is a obliging company with the film's well-controlled rhythm, the cast is fittingly in working order, and Gutierrez Caba's fresh handsomeness is the vestigial innocence left among adulthood, at least we can still have faith until it gets tainted by the consumption of the malignancy, envy, opportunism and discrimination, I hope Saura agrees with me this time.

My first encounter with this bleak, stunning film was in its homeland, some 50 miles or so from the area. I felt the heat, the anger and how nature really does control us. What it shows keenly , particularly in the exquisite use of black and white is how close we can all be at any time to savagery. The thin veneer of humanity can so easily be removed. It left me sadly aware that we are all capable of such tragedy. Watch it for a feral insight into our dark souls. Superb.

Full review on my blog max4movies: La Caza (international title: The Hunt) is a drama about three aging friends reuniting for hunting rabbits. The heat and talking about past mistakes make the men increasingly aggressive, until a catastrophe happens. The characters' backstories are told in an unconventional way and because of the wonderful cinematography the movie succeeds in presenting believable characters on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Although the hunt sequences overtly depict violence against animals and could have easily been toned down, the dramatic escalation is well-written, and the conflict between the men feels authentic.