Juan Antonio Bardem was one of the luminaries of the
post-World War II Spanish cinema. As a committed communist, Bardem didn’t mince
words when it came to criticizing Franco’s dictatorship. Both Bardem and Luis Garcia Berlanga (the other influential Spaniard who spearheaded 1950s cinematic transformation) rejected costume or militaristic dramas (which the regime gave
instant approval) and designed social drama, in the vein of Italian neo-realist cinema
(by early 1950s the style was already passe in Italy). In 1951, Bardem and
Berlanga co-directed the ironically titled ‘The Happy Couple’, in which they
used humor to detail the contemporary Spanish life. In 1953, Bardem co-wrote the
satirical script for ‘Welcome Mr. Marshall’, which was critically hailed in the
international festival circuits. In the same year, Bardem founded cinema
journal ‘Objectivo’. It raised awareness about film criticism and informed
readers about the films banned by the strict censors (two years later, the film
journal itself was banned by the government).
In 1955, Mr. Juan
Antonio Bardem decided to write as well as direct Death of a Cyclist ('Muerte de un ciclista', 1955), a
subversive social commentary loaded with melodrama. In the same year Bardem
publicly denounced the state of Spanish cinema under Franco’s era. When Death
of a Cyclist won the international critics’ prize at Cannes, Bardem was serving a
brief prison term (on political grounds during the shooting of his next acclaimed
feature Calle Mayor). Mr. Bardem was arrested several other times during
Franco’s regime. One of vital achievements of the director is creation of Production
Company called UNINCI. Although the production company was disbanded within a
small period of time, it enabled the return of renowned auteur Luis Bunuel
(from his exile in Mexico) to make the satirical masterpiece Viridiana (1961).
Death of a Cyclist was Bardem’s serious effort to push the
boundaries of national cinema through the application of some of the American cinema
aesthetics. It was equally influenced by otherwise polarizing neo-realism and Hitchcockian
imagery. The movie opens with the titular incident – a speeding car runs over a
man on a bicycle, in the middle of vast rural expanse. A man immediately jumps
out of the car to help the severely injured cyclist, but the beautiful woman
who accompanies him asks to leave the wounded guy. The man and woman named Juan
(Alberto Closas) and Maria Jose (Lucian Bose) are having a secret affair and if
discovered their social status may get affected. Maria is the wife of a wealthy
industrialist Miguel (Otello Toso). While the emptiness of bourgeois life has
made Maria to seek the arms of her old sweetheart Juan, she isn’t daring enough
to leave the lavish lifestyle. Juan was an idealist and a soldier who fought
against fascism in the Spanish Civil war. Now, he has gained some political
security and a job (as professor) due to his powerful brother-in law.
Next day, Juan reads about the death of cyclist, published
under a small column in the newspapers. The couple’s guilt of leaving the
cyclist intensifies when a scornful pianist/art critic Rafa (Carlos Casaravilla) – a frequent guest at rich-people parties – insinuates that he
watched the adulterous couple in the same rural road. It’s not clear whether
Rafa watched the accident, but Maria Jose wants to protect herself before the
issue becomes a big scandal. Juan makes a trip to visit the cyclist’s widow,
residing in cramped quarters. An elderly neighbor lady informs that the widow
has made the exhausting trip to Madrid to claim her husband’s insurance. The visit
gradually leads to regeneration of Juan’s morals, who has been hollowed out
by collective as well as individual failures. Now he wishes to confess his
crime and liberate himself and he prods Maria Jose to do the same.
Director Bardem’s refined visual language tries to explore
the nature of two different conflicts: an internal conflict – choosing between
good and evil; and societal conflicts – huge division between poor working class
and bourgeois society. The internal conflicts are brilliantly emphasized by
juxtaposing inner feelings with distinct atmospheric surroundings. Bardem
stages the central characters’ conflicts in well-realized backgrounds of a
circus arena, an art exhibition or riotous party. Maria and Juan’s meetings are
often filmed in close-up or over-the-shoulder shots, where the tight framing
zeroes-in on their timid feelings. Bardem employs efficient, creative editing
techniques (by Margarita Ochoa) to build suspense. Apart from the superb use of
jump cuts and match cuts, two editing sequences stand-out: the class room and
party scene. The indifferent action of Juan in the classroom was punctuated
with long shots of classroom and increasingly tighter shots of Juan’s face. He
is distressed after reading the news of cyclist death, which leads him to
embarrass a good student in front of the entire class. Juan’s actions in the scene
are seen as a subtle indictment of the elite members of Francoist Spain, who
utterly disregarded the issues around them.
While the internal conflicts, accentuated using noir
textures and Hitchcockian techniques, works well for the dramatic perspective,
the social insights and politicized conversion of Juan are neither subtle nor
very convincing. The early sequence when Juan visits the cyclist widow’s
dilapidated apartment houses (uses a lot of high angle shots to indicate the impoverished's stature) was a scathing, subtle critique on the class-ridden society,
created by fascist regime. But at other occasions, Bardem lays out class
politics through blunt dialogues or overt symbolism. The conversations between
Juan and the student Matilde is contrived in its nature, because Juan’s
redemption is repeatedly insisted as the rebirth of communist ideologue. Apart
from inclusion of some of these tiresome political commentaries, Bardem excels
in relating the individual feelings of oppression and dread to the collective
feelings of 1950s Spanish society. The ending was one of the other minor flaws
in the narrative, as director Bardem was forced to ‘punish’ the adulterous
women (to pass the censors).
Trailer
Death of a Cyclist (88 minutes) is a riveting indictment of
the bourgeoisie class’ ego, greed, and spiritually empty opulence. Barring few blunt
segments, the film’s sociopolitical commentary remains more relevant than
ever.
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