Thinking Aloud About Film: Umbracle (Pere Portabella, Spain, 1972)

https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/02/20/thinking-aloud-about-film-umbracle-pere-portabella-spain-1972/ We continue our exploration of Pere Portabella films, this one his third feature, an experimental off-shoot of Cuadecuc Vampir. Umbracle means shade created by twigs or pieces of wood, and we discuss the significance of the title in relation to what the film shows, is it focussing on what’s being hidden or revealed by the light? The film has a mystery that raises questions, a sensuality; there’s a seduction, both somatic and intellectual, to what the images are like and what they show. The film trots out three different film critics to discuss the impossibility of representing, and to advocate for an underground, more political, more experimental cinema; juxtaposing this with excerpts of a Frente infinito (Pedro Lazaga, 1959), a film about a priest in wartime, an ideal of Francoist cinema, the cross hand-in-hand with the rifle. A film of fragments, about modernity, on politics, a critique, yet one conscious of the seductiveness of sounds and images. We discuss all this and more in this all too brief podcast.