LOS SANTOS INNOCENTES (HOLY INNOCENTS)
Spain, 1984, 107 minutes, Colour.
Alfredo Landa, Francisco Rabal.
Directed by Mario Camus.
Holy Innocents is a striking Spanish film, set in the 60s, yet a memoir of the hard life of peasants at the end of the Franco era. It highlights the harshness of the peasants life, family relationships, hopes for children, a handicapped child and the burden, also of a senile uncle. The film also shows the affluent life of the aristocracy and their disregard of their peasants, or their using them. (There are echoes of themes from Bunuel's films, especially The Exterminating Angel, Tristana. The film is often stark and brutal, sad and offering insight into the hard lives of Spaniards.
1. The impact of this drama? The Spanish atmosphere? The universal appeal? The period, characters and class within this context?
2. The use of authentic Spanish locations? The countryside, the farm? The 60s, wealth and poverty? Nature? The musical score?
3. The structure of the film: the straight narrative, the memoir, the perspective of each of the characters, the chapters from the various characters point of view? The omission of a chapter from the mother?
4. The title of the film, its biblical echoes, Herod and the innocent children massacred? For Christ? The title in the context of a Catholic country?
5. The portrait of the parents, Paco and Regula? Age and experience, servants, their own house, hardship and poverty, hunger? The handicapped child and the burden on Regula? The tenderness between the two? The difficulties? Azaria and his growing senile, the burden on the family? The parents and their hopes for their children? Having to see them go into service? Their trying to make amends for Azarias and his disruptions? Paco as gamekeeper, his being used by the aristocracy, the accident, their urging him to his feet, his being crippled, the consequences of the injury? Going to the old house - and being discarded by the owners? The children remembering their parent's hard life?
6. Azarias and the opening of the film, his age, the crow, the birds, the owl? The senile old man - sympathetic, cunning, the touch of cruelty? His disturbing the aristocracy? The accidents - his relieving himself etc? The hunt? His taking part, place, not fitting in, the killing of his beloved crow and his grief? The brutality of his hanging Ivan? Audience emotional sympathy for this revenge? Finally alone, Regula sending him the crucifix? His being virtually imprisoned in the room by his senility?
7. The son and his hopes, leaving the family, the military? Going to work in the household, the tasks? Not as successful as his father with the hunting? The daughter and her having to be a maid? Both of them used? Their gratitude towards their parents? The irony of the return of the son and the memoir?
8. The aristocracy: Ivan, life on the property, his wealth, lifestyle, arrogance? The affair with Purita? The foreman. and his wife betraying him? The banquets, the hunts, the callousness of the hunters and their treatment of the servants, of Paco and his injury? The brutality of Ivans being hanged so brutally?
9. The Marquesa and her visit, the wealthy, the first Communion, her prayer and religious observance, the comment on Catholicism in the character of the Marquesa, her patronage and giving gifts? The way that she met the servants and their response to her?
10. The picture of the people in the town, the household? The class structure? The legacy of the Franco period? The film offering an overview of the Franco period and its consequences?
