Cinema
Life in Shadows
Vida en sombras
Lorenzo Llobet Gràcia · 1953
Synopsis
Carlos Durán is born in a fairground booth where the novelty of the moment, the cinema, is on show, and his whole life is marked by it. At fourteen, he shoots an amateur film, then becomes a professional cameraman. He declares his love to Ana during a screening of Romeo and Juliet and marries her. When the civil war breaks out, he leaves her to go and film the fighting in the street, and she is killed in a shoot-out. Racked with remorse, he becomes a war reporter, then sinks into depression and comes to hate the cinema.
Context
Shot between November 1947 and February 1948 and partly financed by the director's family, the film was placed in the lowest category by the censors, re-edited by Antonio del Amo, and was released only in 1953, in Barcelona and then in Madrid, in second-rate cinemas. It belongs to a current of the late forties that called itself “telluric”. It pays homage to George Cukor's Romeo and Juliet and to Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca. Almost forgotten, it was restored by Ferran Alberich from 16 mm copies and screened again in 1983, then shown at the Venice Mostra in 2008.
Who it is for
A black and white film, rich in film quotations; it is better to recognise the works the hero watches.
Prizes and reception
Unnoticed on its release, it was rehabilitated after its restoration in 1983 and is counted among the most remarkable films of the Spanish post-war period.