Festivity and other Berlanguian discoursal elements in textual analysis
of
¡Vivan los novios!
(1970)
1
Fiesta y estilemas del discurso berlanguiano en el análisis de ¡Vivan los novios!
(1970)
doxa.comunicación |
nº 35, pp. 323-341
| 323
July-December of 2022
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
How to cite this article:
Codesido Linares, V. (2022). Festivity and other Berlanguian discoursal elements in textual analysis of
¡Vivan los novios!
(1970).
Doxa
Comunicación
, 35, pp. 323-341.
https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n35a1608
Váleri Codesido Linares
. With Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Audio-visual Communication from the Complutense
University of Madrid, she is a predoctoral researcher (FPU) in the PhD Program in Audio-visual Communication,
Advertising & PR in the Information Sciences faculty (UCM). She has had research stays in Western Sydney University
(Australia) and the Centro de
Investigação Em Ciência e Tecnologia das Artes
de Oporto
(Portugal) and has participated
in numerous congresses and research events in Europe, Australia and Latin America.
Complutense University of Madrid, Spain
[email protected]
ORCID: 0000-0002-9581-2815
Abstract:
is paper considers those elements of the lms directed by Berlanga
that operate as hallmarks of his lm narrative, taking as its reference the
feature lm
“¡Vivan los novios!”
(Long Live the Bride and Groom)
(1970).
e Valencian director portrayed recognisable aspects of the Spain of
the time: the arrival of mass tourism and the consequent cultural shock,
eroticism as a plot device, etc., utilising the aesthetic presuppositions
of commercial cinema of the time. However, his recognisable style,
related to the grotesque and to estas as stages of subversion, prevails,
although it is intertwined with the constructs of conventional Spanish
comedy. In its application of the method of textual analysis suggested by
Text eory, with the theoretical reference proposed by Jesús González
Requena, the present study analyses the symbolic structure of the plot,
as well as its narrative thesis, which contradicts the habitual narrative in
contemporary Spanish commercial lms.
Keywords:
Berlanga; Audio-visual Text eory; esta; grotesque satire; late-
Francoist cinema.
Resumen:
Esta investigación profundiza en los elementos del cine dirigido por el ci
-
neasta valenciano que operan como distintivos de su narrativa fílmica,
y toma como referente el largometraje Vivan los novios (1970). Cierta
-
mente, el director valenciano retrató aspectos reconocibles de la España
del momento: la llegada masiva del turismo y el consecuente choque
cultural, el erotismo como rasgo argumental, etc., desde los presupuestos
estético propios del cine comercial del momento. Sin embargo, sus reco
-
nocibles estilemas, relacionados con el esperpento y la esta como esce
-
nario subversivo, prevalecen si bien se entrelazan con los constructos de
la comedia alimenticia. En la aplicación del método de análisis textual
que propone la Teoría del Texto con el referente teórico planteado por
Jesús González Requena, la presente investigación analiza la estructura
simbólica del relato, así como su tesis narrativa, que contradice en su
presupuesto a la habitual del cine comercial español coetáneo.
Palabras clave:
Berlanga; teoría del texto audiovisual; esta; esperpento; cine tardo-
franquista.
Received: 15/01/2022 - Accepted: 09/05/2022 - Early access: 09/06/2022 - Published: 01/07/2022
Recibido: 15/01/2022 - Aceptado: 09/05/2022 - En edición: 09/06/2022 - Publicado: 01/07/2022
<p>[Enlace de URL / hc (has AS)]</p>
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¡Vivan los novios!
(1970)
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1. Introduction
Luis García Berlanga’s work as a lm-maker made him a reference in Spanish lmography. is paper studies in detail those
elements of the Valencian director’s work which serve as distinctive markers of his lm narrative, taking the feature lm
¡
Vivan los novios
! (
Long Live the Bride & Groom)
(1970) as a reference. e director portrayed clearly recognisable aspects
of contemporary Spain: the coming of mass tourism, sexual repression, eroticism, etc. At the same time, Berlanga shows a
notable change relative to his previous lms; the biggest novelty arguably being his adoption of colour lm. Simultaneously,
his particular line-up of characters, scenery and action is notably aected by the modernising steps he takes in this, his last
Spanish lm under later-Francoism.
We focus our analytical eorts on the Berlanguian text in the feature lm ¡
Vivan los novios
! (
Long Live the Bride and Groom)
(1970) as representative of the commercial discourse of Spanish lm. In the words of the director regarding his lm: “When
signing with Cesáreo González for three years, he proposed I dive into commercial cinema, using the ingredients the public
nds most easily digestible” (Hidalgo & Hernández, 2020: 149-150). is paper aims to segregate those features of conventional
comedy in the Berlanguian style, among which can be found carnivalesque festivities as a hallmark In order to later focus on
the aforementioned story, we rst look at those aspects of his lmography which characterise his narrative style over the
previous period.
1.1. Style, the absurd and the grotesque
e rst half of the 20th century brought considerable change in theatrical representation. “e dawn of the new century
brought with it enormous interest in circuses and travelling or street shows. An interest in popular culture which turned
away from paternalism to embrace a true appreciation of the ancestral” (Partearroyo, 2020: 38). In his plays, Valle-Inclán
oered something as Spanish as it was an example of “esperpento”, drawing on carnival tradition and Menippean satire from
the perspective of Mijail Bajtín (1974). e ‘alienation eect’ also termed “distancing” was created by the playwright Bertolt
Brecht in his search for a theatre that could oer a critical stance, more than an emotional one, that would make the audience
reect on certain things, personalizing less and dealing to a greater degree with ethical or political aspects of the situations
represented. Berroa points to the social inuence of Valle-Inclán’s work in this sense when he says “there is an extremely
evident parallel between this piece by Brecht [
Mother Courage and her Children
, 1941], and one of the key texts of Valle-
Inclán’s theatre,
Divinas palabras
, published in 1920. (...) Brecht’s work owes a lot to the latter” (1998, para. 5). Clearly, the
avoidance of emotional identication with the character to thus favour a critical perspective of the situation portrayed, oers
considerable points in common between one play and the other.
Unlike Elizabethan theatre –Shakespeare being the chief exponent, who established the dominant narrative proposal for stage
performances– Valle-Inclán suggests a bird’s eye view of the characters, setting them below the author, thus allowing him / her
to ridicule them and to criticize their strife as a part of a larger misguided system: thus giving birth to a particular grotesque
satire.
Fiestas and carnival in the Berlanguian universe oer a space for experimentation with stereotypes, with certain initial
emphasis on the contrast of rich / poor. Women, if intelligent or capable, show signs of coldness and –with increasing sharpness
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as his oeuvre went on– are manipulative and peevish, while the men become increasingly timorous, or confused, unless they
hold some position of authority. e synergies established between the dierent roles are expressed in a scenography that
presents a polyphony of characters within a social group. ese are subtly structured, to the constant music of a municipal
band: minor wind and percussion instruments which are the habitual accompaniment to provincial estas, especially on the
Mediterranean coast, where there are ports and the chance of trade. In his 50s lms, the soundtrack appears as a parallel to
those of the Hollywood studios, to sweeten an atmosphere of underlying sarcasm.
Miracles of ursday
(1959) functions as a
criticism of power, humorously showing the corruption of the school master, the doctor, the landowner and the village big-
shot. In this story, the folksy, provincial band can be heard in the background, but never seen.
In
Plácido
(1961), the three-wheeler driven by the lead actor, which carries various people or objects, looks as if it has come
out of a Christmas parade, as it bears a cardboard and glitter ‘shooting star’ on top. Allusions to a parade, be they to a carnival
troupe or a funeral procession, intrude into the Berlanguian universe again and again, whether implicitly or explicitly. In
e
Rocket from Calabuch
(1956), the reworks scene celebrates the climax of the story. In this text, however, the village band is
both seen and heard.
Berlanga defends the creation of group character and collective action. His wandering narrative perspective, which skips with
agility from one point of view to another, is one of his most notable techniques.
I’d describe Berlanga’s way of lming as a multiple universe full of areas of living dynamics. A sort of global choreography where
each segment has its own space, an autonomy that invites the lmgoer to move between them and to join each of them in turn.
Few lm-makers lmed like that (González Requena, 2021).
In his initial period, his collaborations with Bardem and Mihura mark his style. e former had great inuence on the subjects
of the lms they collaborated on. Mihura, in
Welcome Mr. Marshall!
(1953), for example, “very eectively improved the
voiceover” (Rodríguez Merchán & Deltell Escolar, 2013: 128). Later was to come his time with Azcona, before one nal stage
in democratic Spain. roughout his career, we encounter an increasingly existential sarcasm, skewered by the humdrum
and mundane. Regarding
La Boutique
(1967)
,
González Requena observes how the shots of heart-breaking scenes are swiftly
edited to become “a closer and amused look at all those little details that make up the comedy of daily life” (Universidad CEU
Cardenal Herrera, 2019), although the characters are usually shown to be conditioned by mutual synergies, unable to carefully
reect on the rapid narrative rhythm, under certain ongoing pressure from one side or the other.
1.2. Narrative in Spanish cinema and the Berlanguian discourse
To speak of national cinema, one needs to have a mixture of particular characteristics which unify the texts. In
eorising
National Cinema
, Rosen observes the nationality of a given cinema not in the acceptance of a certication that identies
the geographical origin of lm production, but as intertextual symptomatology which inter-twines a family of stories with a
common cultural origin (2006, p. 17). e Francoist regime adopted a notable change of approach and passed form autarky to
foreign trade and internationalisation, though, with certain nuances. Late-Francoism was the spur of a certain narrative, which
aected, to a lesser or greater degree, the extension of discursive production. e pairing Spanish/indigenous vs. foreign, the
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¡Vivan los novios!
(1970)
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latter represented by tourism or foreign people, was to determine the narrative proposal of the Valencian lm-maker from
Welcome
Mr. Marshall!
(1953) onwards.
Spanish economic growth in the 60s was remarkable. e opening-up of the economy generated auence through tourism,
among other sectors, and with that intercultural transfer owing from democracies in which equality and individual liberties
were promoted, at least nominally. Viadero points out that “these facts caused a series of incoherencies of which the Spanish
themselves were aware” (2016, p. 333). e paradoxes stemming from the ambiguity of Francoist discourse were to be roundly
covered by the national lm narrative in the diversity of its formulations in the sixties and seventies.
New Spanish Cinema not only gave form to these paradoxes but sharpened criticism. In “its rejection of the ocial-industrial
lm it coincided with the non-conformist attitude of the renowned Berlanga-Bardem tandem as well as with the “Salamanca
Conversations” (Caparrós & De España, 2018: 84). Among the referential lm-makers we nd Manuel Summers and
From
pink to yellow
(1963), Miguel Picazo and
Aunt Tula
(1964), Basilio Martín Patino and
Nine Letters to Bertha
(1966) or Francisco
Regueiro, though Francoist censure supposed a patent threat to the distribution of their work. Towards the late 60s, censorship
became slightly more exible as regards the erotic and/or sexual, therefore “even lms with more traditional values wanted to
take advantage of the growing desire to exhibit attractive female bodies” (Huerta & Pérez, 2012). International sexual liberation
in counterpoint to Francoism and its mission to protect the conguration of national virtue –while gaining the benets the
incipient erotic content could occasion– presented itself as a petri dish for conguring the European, or international in general,
as a synonym of debauchery. After all, from its beginnings, the Francoist discourse despised everything foreign and lionised
everything Spanish. To vilify and trade on the image of ‘the foreign’ –as in the stereotype of the “sexy Swedish girl”– became
a common element of the narrative-cinematographic scene of late-Francoist commercial cinema, and the Mediterranean
coast became the backdrop for portraying ‘
landista’
eroticism (
Translator’s Note. ‘landista’ / ‘landismo’· refer to the numerous
comedies starring Alfredo Landa, epitome of the often-frustrated Spanish male in 60s and 70s commercial cinema
).
Towards the middle of the decade, and although the emerging “ird Way” cinema expressed international relations as
opportunities for economic advancement for Spain –and thus responded to common commercial lm– there were still
comedies in this later Francoist period that railed against neighbouring countries. So it was in the animation at the beginning
of
Zorrita Martínez
(Vicente Escrivá, 1975), saying “she’s a bad French woman, also called
loose
”. At the same time, in
Tres
suecas para tres Rodríguez
(Pedro Lazaga, 1975) the character played by Florinda Chico unleashes slaps on the foreign tourists
for their “shameless” attitudes. In late-Francoist comedy and at the other end of the spectrum, references to international
powers are related to economic prosperity, though in detriment to “national” values. In
Celos, amor y mercado común
(Alfonso
Paso, 1973) parts of the dialogue maintain that European women work and are not jealous. At the party Irene (Elisa Ramírez)
and her husband attend with Caridad’s aunt (Vicky Lusson), the guests use the term ’European’ as a synonym of promiscuous.
At the beginning of the decade, sexual repression in rural Spain was to remain as a frequent theme in commercial cinema.
In
Lo verde empieza en los Pirineos
(Vicente Escrivá, 1973), José Luis López Vázquez plays a forty-something whose romantic
inexperience and repression have turned into an obsession with the opposite sex. In the previously mentioned
Zorrita Martínez
(1975), again, José Luis López Vázquez oers a nal monologue on the sexual repression of Spaniards.
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We have referred to the lm-maker Francisco Regueiro as a promise of that New Spanish Cinema which continued in Berlanga’s
discursive wake. Five years after the opening of
Long Live the Bride & Groom
, Regueiro made
Duerme, duerme, mi amor
(1975),
an absurd tale starring José Luis López Vázquez trapped in a dysfunctional, tortuous marriage. e cast includes Laly Soldevilla
as his neighbour, who daily wears a wedding dress, veil included, in the hope that someone will propose. e representation of
death, typical of the absurd, is also invoked by a local man played by Manuel Alexandre, who plots suicides that make his body
disappear, thus keeping his family from cashing in on his passing. ese are just a few examples of the battery of stories that
follow the narrative trail of
Long Live the Bride & Groom
, a lm which joined the ranks of a common and popular discourse in
late-Francoist cinema.
2. Method
Film analysis boasts numerous approaches
2
. is study considers proposals developed in Audio-visual Text eory; a
methodology created by Jesús González Requena (2000). is covers both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Elements of the
audio-visual narrative such as the shot and the viewpoint, composite parameters such as colour and light, dialogue references
and non-verbal language, among others, can be quantied. At the same time this analytical method includes concepts from
a transversality of elds of study, such as semiotics, philosophy, psychoanalysis or anthropology, as well as oering certain
exibility as it can cover other elds related to the social sciences or humanities, including, for example, linguistics or iconology.
is methodology, among its initial practical steps, allows one to freeze the images and
spell them out
by breaking them down
carefully to their elements. eir visual parameters can be identied and described, such as the relationship between gure
and background or the size of the conguration in the shot; as well as facilitating analysis of the composite structures (González
Requena, 2000). Following the step described, Audio-visual Text eory frequently invites analysis of a particular shot in the
lm, one of interest for a detailed examination in comparison with another from a dierent sequence in the text, which oers
signicant contrasts or similarities in the symbolic or discursive structures of the story in question. Furthermore, in the textual
analysis, “compositional similarities can be found between a frame of the text and an external image, separate from the object
of study, which, due to its iconographic elements may establish a dialectic of potential interest for analysis” (Codesido, 2017:
115) when the results bring to light a notable link due to the existence of pertinent inferences.
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Table 1. Phases of the analysis
Proposed analytical process
1Identication
Contextualization of the piece
2Examination
Comparison of the image
3
Conceptual applicationDrawing up of inferences
Source: created by the author
Identication of the work would imply what Panofsky termed “natural subject matter” (1955) when taking into consideration
values such as shape, colour, the whole composition, etc. e subsequent “conventional subject matter”, again proposed by
the author, (1955) relates the distinct elements and the formulation of an issue or theme. Hs method “is not the only one, but
it is the most complete when deciphering meaning” (Gila, 2011). e model of iconological analysis for cinematographic
analysis can, according to Martínez (2005), “be applied wholly or in part to practically any cinematographic story”. One should
not forget the warning given by Zunzunegui concerning the danger in lm analysis of “exacerbating the microscopic look, of
losing sight of the lm as a whole when extracting selected moments for their analytical breakdown” (1996, p.15). Although
the compression of the whole of the text is essential, as alluded to herein, intertextual links can be of enormous interest in lm
analysis, be they from texts drawn up by contemporary lm-makers, by earlier ones or even, what could be termed self-quotes,
reiterated references in the universe of one particular author.
As pointed out by the Grupo Entrevernes, “therefore, it is not a matter of saying what is the true meaning of the text nor of
nding a new or original meaning to the exclusion of other meanings” (1982, p. 15) but of digging deeper into the symbolic
structure.
3. Analysis
Table 2. Data
¡
Vivan los novios
!
(1970
)
Director
Luis García Berlanga
Editing
José Luis Matesanz
Script
Rafael Azcona, Luis García Berlanga
Production
Cesáreo González Rodr
íguez
Photography
Larraya, Aurelio G.
Music
Pérez Olea, Antonio
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Length
83 minutesOpening date
20/01/1970
Cast
López Vázquez, José Luis. Soldevila, Laly.
Prada, José Maria.
Alexandre, Manuel.
Vivo, Francisco Javier. Gisbert, Teresa.
Source: created by the author using data from the ICAA
3.1. Description of the story
On the eve of his wedding, Leonardo, played by José Luis López Vázquez, has travelled with his mother to meet his ancée
in the coastal town where she lives and works. Although Loli (Laly Soldevilla) is well into her thirties and he over forty, their
relationship has been celibate, something that Leonardo wishes to put an end to as soon as possible as he lusts after practically
all the attractive women that cross his path, a common event in the tourist resort.
In an atmosphere of liberation where his neighbour, for example, has relationships with two attractive German nurses at the
same time, Leonardo feels especially tempted. He tries to buy the aection of a beautiful Irish street artist, portrayed by actress
Jane Fellner, paying for her to spend a night in a hotel she cannot aord. Unlucky in his attempted conquest and after an
evening of fruitless attempts at seduction with several tourists on the evening before his wedding, Leonardo nds, on reaching
the apartment, that his mother has passed away suddenly.
Loli and his future brother-in-law (José María Prada) persuade him to go ahead with the wedding and to postpone the wake.
Faced with the contradiction of celebrating the wedding without having mourned his mother, Leonardo feels misunderstood
and used by his in-laws, though he gives in to their demands. To escape from his reality, he fanaticises about the lovely foreign
artist who is looking for him, outside the church after the ceremony, to return the money,
e day after the wedding, Leonardo’s mother’s body is found in the sea. After that is dealt with, the burial takes place. At the
wake, Leonardo again meets the Irish girl and, with the help of his other brother-in-law (Manuel Alexandre), who, suers from
transitory amnesia, manages to speak to her, the brother-in-law acting as translator.
En route to the burial, Leonardo sees the girl hang-gliding away, while he is in his mother’s funeral procession. He tries to
escape form the procession and run after her but doesn’t manage to catch her.
3.2. Plotlines
Previous lms directed and co-written by Berlanga such as
Plácido
(1961),
e Executioner
(1963) or
La Boutique
(1967)
–and
implicitly
e Rocket from
Calabuch
(1956)–, present common themes related to weddings and/or marriages, while repeating
the rural and/or coastal scenes. Regarding content (Chatman, 1990),
Long Live the Bride & Groom
stays on the same lines,
with characters that clearly correlate to previous ones; although, from
La Boutique
(1967) on, their darker side is more clearly
expressed.
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Death, explicitly present in Berlanguian lms since
Plácido
(1961), holds a key place in this story. Furthermore, in 1970,
Berlanga’s work includes sexual repression and the gure of the disabled, domineering, castrating mother, emerging as a
metaphor for Spain in the domestic cinema of the time. While
La Boutique
(1967) oers us a mother-in-law, and therefore a
mother, who is manipulative and Machiavellian,
Long Live the Bride & Groom
(1970) has a mother and future mother-in-law
who is key to moving the plot forward though she was, as was common at the time, only a secondary character.
Examples of the dying mother as a symbol of Francoist Spain are to be found later in
Un casto varón español
(Jaime de Armiñán,
1973) and in
Las señoritas de mala compañía
(José Antonio Nieves Conde, 1973), in which Doña Íñiga (Milagros Leal) is
the convalescent but lady-like mother of the middle-aged Don Joaquín, who is emotionally and sexually immature –again,
portrayed by López Vázquez–, while she is extremely conservative and anchored in the past, being controlling, judgmental,
provincial and holding certain social status. If there was any doubt about the metaphorical function of the character of the
mother, in the autumn of her days, as a national symbol,
Ana and the Wolves
(Carlos Saura, 1973) makes it patent. But in
Long
Live the Bride & Groom
(1970) we do not see a convalescent or dying mother, but one who drops dead all of a sudden. e
extreme rawness can also be seen as a Berlanguian ourish.
Debauchery and even partner-swapping are recurring features of late-Francoist commercial cinema. However, the originality
of
Long Live the Bride & Groom
stands out when a child’s dummy is used as an element of fetish, something dissonant in the
genre, as well as distinctively Berlanguian. If a dummy is withdrawn between the ages of two and four, we can deduce that
the perspective of these libidinous characters regarding their desire stems from a parallel mindset, paradoxically with no
possibility of execution.
Looking at the transvestitism in
Long Live the Bride & Groom
, we should note that in lms of the late 60s and early 70s this
device is so common as to merit attention. For example, in
A Lady Called Andrew
(Julio Buchs, 1970), the couple played by
Carmen Sevilla and Juan Luis Galiardo exchange bodies, so that each has their soul trapped in the body of the other. Later,
El
calzonazos
(1974), starring Paco Martínez Soria, presents the lead character’s transvestitism as part of the central plot.
Spanishness in its Andalucian variant –as one of the key elements in Berlanga’s rst major success
Welcome Mr. Marshall
(1953)– is hinted at not only through the amenco music heard at the wake, but by means of the folkloric singer drunkenly
throwing up over the side during the party held on the yacht. e ‘Andalucian’ is again oered as a show for tourists. e
Valencian lm-maker’s universe generally shows us characters who trivialise their profession with such naturality that it seems
to be a disguise.
3.3. Aesthetic-symbolic elements
3.3.1. Berlanguian eroticism
Given the psycho-analytical slant of Berlanga’s cinema in the late 60s and 70s
3
, the absence of phallic symbolism in the object
of our study -
Long Live the Bride & Groom-
seems curious. e text is invaded by elements of infancy in the latency of its
3
e presence of phallic symbols in
La escopeta nacional
(Luis García Berlanga, 1978) could probably be analysed. In the story, the characters are driven by an
eroticism that, though it continues to present psychoanalytical notes, and to evoke phases noted by Freud, refers to a later age; a stage of development that allows
certain independence and greater awareness than corresponds to kindergarten pupils.
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eroticism. In González Requena’s words, the lms directed abroad by Berlanga oer all the characterology that psychoanalysis
identies with the anal-sadistic phase (Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera, 2019, 25m57s); that is, from the ages of two to four.
We suggest that
Long Live the Bride & Groom
, Berlanga’s last lm made under Franco’s regime, structures its erotic symbology
on this selfsame supposition. When Leonardo sees a chance to seduce a woman, who is crying disconsolately due to jealousy, on
the bow of a boat while the others occupy the cabins –those others, one deduces, having succumbed to romantic temptation–,
the protagonist tries to console the exotic lady by feeding her forkfuls of paella, as if he was feeding a recently weaned baby.
is coincides with the comments of González Requena, on La
Boutique
(1967), in which feeding during early infancy also
constitutes an erotic base (Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera, 2019, 20m25s). In
Long Live the Bride & Groom
(1970), the
protagonist accompanies the feeding with kisses, which move steadily closer to her mouth.
Leonardo repeatedly yearns to be a suckling babe again or to be an infant comforted by the object(s) of his desire. But it is not
him alone, so too does his boss, a sort of alter-ego of Leonardo’s who manages to do that which is beyond the main character:
set limits on Loli and her brother, exercising his authority and, nally, seducing his playful and attractive German neighbours.
e sign of a night of passion having taken place is none other than a dummy, hanging from the boss’s belt as he waves a sleepy
goodbye to the pretty girls who watch him knowingly from the window as he stumbles towards his car. us, the dummy, an
unmistakable symbol of the under-fours, acts as a kind of synecdoche to tell us that an evening of eroticism has taken place, a
further strengthening of the symbolic structure alluded to by the text substitutes sexual activity for playful scenes typical of a
baby’s day and therefore asexual. e paradox lends the story a latent erotic surrealism, as well as something of the grotesque.
Confusing sexuality with maternalism, a perspective from which femininity –that is, a woman– is observed as a baby perceives
its mother, turns her into a being in a situation of threatening power. In other words, Berlanga’s portrayal of womankind –
moreover, with increasing emphasis in each lm– stems from the point of view of a child who loves and fears his/her mother,
not that of an adult of a mature and assimilated sexuality. With this approach, we understand that the Berlanguian female
characters transmute in the narrative from all-powerful and threatening beings, such as those played by Sonia Bravo and Ana
María Campoy in
La Boutique
(1967), to sexualized dolls
4
, not only in his sole incursion into French cinema,
Lifesize
(1974),
but also in
La Escopeta Nacional
(1978)
5
. e truly Berlanguian feature in this moment of his oeuvre is how the male characters
submerge themselves into the fragility of a child in matters of the heart, though they are shown to be in their thirties or forties,
the gag lies precisely in the grotesqueness conjured up by the insistence on this point.
3.3.2. Absurdity and grotesque festivity
When Leonardo meets the object of his desire at the wake, before declaring his love, he shows the girl his mother’s body and
cries disconsolately before her, just as a small child would on losing its mother. He cries not only for his loss, but is appealing
for an immediate maternal substitute, as would be natural in the case of a small child. us, Leonardo, more than seducing the
girl, seems to be focusing his eorts on her cradling him, though this does not come to pass in the end.
4
ese plot devices respond simultaneously to aesthetic-narrative currents of the time, thus the fetishist representation of the doll, and of women as dolls, can be
traced to other contemporary Spanish lms, such as
No es bueno que el hombre esté solo
(Pedro Olea, 1973).
5
It has been said that characters such as the aspiring actor in this choral tale “go beyond caricature and become a mere object, with little dierence between this
woman and the doll in
Tamaño Natural
” (Deltell, 2012, pp. 115-116).
332
| nº 35, pp. 323-341 |
July-December of 2022
Festivity and other Berlanguian discoursal elements in textual analysis of
¡Vivan los novios!
(1970)
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
doxa.comunicación
Little time passes before the funeral rites start to oer a more festive atmosphere when amenco music starts to play. In a corner,
young foreigners are seen listening intently to an enthusiastic account of a legendary bullght while others are consuming
something illicit, all this to the sound of handclapping and the singing of both foreigners and locals. In this way, the mother’s
wake, sharing physical space as it does with other dead bodies, becomes a esta. is scene, one of several parallelisms with
carnival, seems a kind of hidden “burying of the sardine” (
T/N: the ‘burial of the sardine’ is an annual ceremony marking
the end of Carnival in Spain. It takes place in hundreds of towns and villages as an act of ending/renewal. It often involves a
cardboard sardine, funereal clothes and a mock burial followed by festivities
).
e brother-in-law arrives with alcoholic drinks while Leonardo, once again, nds himself in the driver’s seat of the hearse. As
mentioned previously, the character nds himself on numerous occasions in a festive situation, without being able to join the
party himself. It is the
others
6
who do so, while the protagonist and his in-laws stoke the festivities by providing nourishment
(paella), drinks (“anisette liqueur and brandy”) or, simply, a reason for the ritual (mourning); however, although they contribute
with their service, they behave neither as participants nor guests. Given the intertextuality with parallel lms and a staging of
the wake that emphasises its Spanishness versus foreign-ness, this aspect could well refer indirectly to Spain’s longed-for entry
to the European Economic Community
7
, the anxieties of which were constantly reected in the narrative of contemporary
commercial cinema, an approach in which the mother’s cadaver would represent the twilight of Francoist Spain.
Moreover, it is not only death as a plot device which is intrinsic to the ‘esperpento’, but its banalisation. e grotesque component
accentuates the deformation of the mortuary and has a bearing on in the subtle, though perverse, comicalness; it functions to
highlight the lower emotions in life’s transcendental moments. In
Long Live the Bride & Groom