Many times we complain about our cinema, its inability to develop an industry with potential and mark us a saga like The Hunger Games or Harry Potter, Hollywood examples of a celluloid that every year adapts new books to the big screen.
However, if we dig into the annals of Spanish cinema, we will also find great works that adapted equally recommendable books, whether they were writers by native authors or not, although theirs is always to pull towards ours.
Building on the prolific streak of film adaptations of works such as Palm Trees in the Snow or Blood Wedding itself I have compiled these 7 Spanish films adapted from great books that will reconcile us with our cinema.
Tristana
Nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1970, the adaptation of the work of Benito Pérez Galdós by Luis Buñuel it was settled with a great acceptance by critics and the public, recovering the story of that love triangle formed by the orphan Tristana, the old man who shelters her and the young painter with whom the former falls in love. Curious interpretation of Catherine Deneuve of one of the most representative female characters of Galdós, whose Tristana was published in 1892.
The Hive
Published in Buenos Aires in 1951 by Camilo José Cela and in Spain four years later after circumventing the censorship that vetoed sexuality and homosexual references in the book, one of the most illustrious works of the Nobel Prize it speaks of the postwar period, of the families that have fallen apart, of the working classes marked by the most bloody episode of our twentieth century. The adaptation, starring José Sacristán and Victoria Abril, was released in 1982 to great box office success and the Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival. Ah! And without confusing it with that great other film from our cinema: The Spirit of the Beehive.
The holy innocents
Directed by Mario Camus, the adaptation of the work of another of the greats of postwar literature, Miguel Delibes, spoke of the sorrows, hunger and misery of a peasant family captured by the clutches of a landowner during the years following the Civil War. Great work for a film at the height that elevated Paco Rabal and Alfredo Landa as winners at the Cannes Film Festival 1984, the year of the premiere of one of the best adaptations of our cinema.
Snow White
The challenge of the Spanish adaptation of the Brother Grimm story lay in the ability to adapt a story perhaps too well known to all. However this Snow White, at least in my opinion, is poetry, sentiment and nostalgia without the need for its actors to open their lips to transmit. A worthy adaptation of that universal story that we all know passed through the filter of the mantillas and bullfighting directed by Pablo Berger from Malaga.
Palm trees in the snow
Although many have called "long" and "excessive" the promising adaptation of the book by light gabas Published in 2012, there is no doubt that, at least, one of the most anticipated films of last Christmas fulfilled its intention by moving us to the convulsed and exotic Equatorial Guinea of the mid-XNUMXth century. Mario Casas, Berta Vázquez, Adriana Ugarte or Macarena Gómez are the main protagonists of the film.
Girlfriend
Adaptation of Blood Wedding by Federico García Lorca and viewed a few weeks ago, The Bride, directed by Paula Ortiz, takes us to the desolate wastelands of a Turkey disguised as an Almeria desert in which a young woman, her future husband and the man with whom she is in love swarm wandering, contained by conventions , the appearance of a witch at the fall of the moon and repressed desires. A worthy adaptation of what is one of Lorca's flagship works and in which, among other aspects, the heartfelt interpretation of Inma Cuesta stands out.
Julieta
The latest film by Almodóvar has come to dispel the bad reviews of the previous film by the La Mancha director, The Passenger Lovers, thanks to a sober and compact plot that takes his story from the three stories in the book Alice Munro's Getaway starring the character Juliet: Destiny, Soon and Silence. The result has convinced the critics (although not so much the public), once again demonstrating the ability of the director of Volver to make those other female universes his own.
These 7 Spanish films adapted from great books They are already part of the history of our cinema (or at least some of the latter denote intentions to be remembered in the future). A good excuse to delve a little more in our cinema (or bookstores) during this weekend
Which of these adaptations did you like the most?
Hello Alberto.
I only saw "The Holy Innocents" and "Snow White" and I keep the first one. I also saw on La 2 de TVE a few weeks ago another adaptation of a Spanish book: "La tía Tula", by Miguel de Unamuno, and I liked it. In fact, Cayetana Guillén Cuervo put this film very well.
A literary greeting from Oviedo.