El sur

Víctor Erice: El sur (ES/FR 1983). Sonsoles Aranguren (Estrella at 8) and Omero Antonutti (her father Agustin). Photo from IMDb.

Etelä / Södern.

   ES/FR 1983. PC: Elías Querejeta, P.C. (Madrid), Chloe Productions (Paris). EX: Jean Pierre Fougez. O: Víctor Erice. SC: José Luis Lopez Linarez – based on the story by Adelaida García Morales. Cin (Eastmancolor, 1,66): José Luis Alcaine. AD: Antonio Belizon. M soundtrack: Maurice Ravel: String quartet F major; Franz Schubert: Quintet C major; Enrique Granados: Danzas Españolas. ED: Pablo G. del Amo. C: Omero Antonutti (Agustin), Sonsoles Aranguren (Estrella at 8), Icíar Bollaín (Estrella at 15), Lola Cardona (Julia), Aurore Clément (Laura, »Irene Rios»). 94 min

    Midnight Sun Film Festival screener link without subtitles, revisited in preparation for MSFF / Yle Areena TV introductions.

    Viewed at home, 7 Nov 2023.

AA: Revisited: Víctor Erice's El sur which I had not seen since its Finnish premiere on 22 Dec 1989 when I reviewed it for the Filmihullu magazine. I included El sur in my MMM Elokuvaopas [MMM Film Guide] of 1000 quality films for the centenary of the cinema in 1995 (1100 films for the second edition in 2005). In October 1989 I had visited Madrid to prepare a tribute to Spanish cinema at our Cinema Orion, and seen there for the first time El espíritu de la colmena, Erice's first film, often hailed as the most beautiful film in the history of the cinema, never theatrically released in Finland. 1989 was for me the year of the Víctor Erice revelation.

The following are from my meditations in preparation for MSFF / Yle Areena TV introductions.

Víctor Erice's approach is painterly. His composition, his sensibility for light and his subtle colour sense are those of a painter. Each shot could be hanging on the wall. That Erice achieved in collaboration with the master cinematographer José Luis Alcaine.

When the teenager Erice moved from the Basque Country to Madrid after high school in the late 1950s, he became a habitué of the Museo del Prado and could spend hours watching Las meninas (1734) by Diego Velázquez.

I don't think it is rewarding to search for particular influences from painters in Erice's films. Instead, I believe that Erice is a great connoisseur of art who has transcended direct influences. He has interiorized them, and he has educated his visual sense through a long practice and wide range of art experiences. His is an art of illumination and transfiguration.

The key difference between a painting and a film image is that cinema is time-bound, and time itself is a core subject in Erice's cinema. In Gilles Deleuze's division L'Image-mouvement and L'image-temps, Erice belongs to the latter. In the distinction between action and contemplation, likewise. That division is very roughly that between the cinema of tradition and the cinema of modernism. Among the great modernists, I feel in Erice's cinema a particular affinity with Antonioni's colour films, starting with Il deserto rosso.

Erice's cinema is anti-dramatic but engrossing in its heightened sense of presence and being. His soul brothers include Ozu, Satyajit Ray, Tarkovsky and Malick. And Abbas Kiarostami, his friend and collaborator in the "Víctor Erice - Abbas Kiarostami: Correspondences" touring exhibition. I was lucky to catch it in Paris in 2007 at the Centre Georges Pompidou.

In recent years there has been a mini-trend of women directors creating films about the relationship of a young daughter and her father: Scrapper by Charlotte Regan, Aftersun by Catherine Wells and Somewhere by Sofia Coppola. In all, there is a self-destructive or suicidal undercurrent in the father figure.

Víctor Erice preceded them in El sur. Let's register the prominence of children in major Spanish films dealing with the Franco era: in Carlos Saura's films (such as Cría cuervos) and in Erice's masterpieces. Another affinity with Kiarostami and Iranian cinema in general. In oppressive circumstances, honesty and authenticity is possible to discover in children.

The Franco era (1939-1973) was one of military dictatorship and censorship. It was a world of secrets, hidden messages and repressed suffering.

Victor Erice's original manuscript was based on a long story by Adelaida García Morales, his then companion. The production was interrupted by the visionary producer Elías Querejeta, and the film was released non finito. What should we think about this? I'm always on the side of the artist. Víctor Erice should have had the chance to finish the production. But El sur is also a masterpiece as it is. Just like Jean Renoir's Partie de campagne. Or Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà.

El sur is a mystery tour in time, centering on Estrela in her three ages: at 8 (Sonsoles Aranguren), at 15 (Icíar Bollaín) and grown-up (the narrator voice of Maria Massip). Our memory can change with time, adding to the mystery, and that is the very subject of Erice.

The movie takes place in the North (La Rioja) while being obsessed about the South (Andalusia, visible only in colour postcards and family snapshots).

It is a movie about a difficulty or blockage in communication (another Antonioni connection) based concretely on the aftermath of the Civil War and the situation of the family broken in it. 

On the most profound level El sur is illuminating about the fact that we are all mysteries to each other - and ourselves.

Antti Alanen: MMM Elokuvaopas (1995, 2005):

Ericen toinen elokuva valmistui 10 vuotta esikoisteoksen Mehiläispesän henki jälkeen. Hillityn melankolinen teos perustuu mietteliääseen rytmiin, tummaan valoasteikkoon ja hienoihin värivivahteisiin. Tilan jäsentäminen ja kerronnan musikaalisuus on sillä tavoin yksityiskohtia myöten oikeaa, herkästi »sävellettyä», että elokuvan oli täytynyt kypsyä kauan ohjaajan sielussa.

Lähtiessään elokuvan lopussa vihdoinkin etelään Estrella ottaa mukaansa muutamia tärkeitä esineitä: vanhoja postikortteja, isän heilurin, salaisen päiväkirjan ja puhelinmaksukuitin. Tämäntapaiset johtolangat ovat elokuvassa tärkeitä. Tytön seuratessa vanhempien maailmassa kehkeytyvää draamaa luodaan ohut rinnastus Hitchcockin Epäilyksen varjoon, jonka juliste on painokkaasti esillä. Tapahtumat sijoittuvat pohjoisespanjalaiseen pikkukaupunkiin vuonna 1957, ja intiimistä aiheesta huolimatta toimintaan levittäytyy, osittain ulkomaalaiselle käsittämättöminä viitteinä, historiallisen menneisyyden varjo.