LA COMUNIDAD/ COMMON WEALTH
Spain, 2000, 110 minutes, Colour.
Carmen Maura, Eduardo Antuna, Maria Asquerino, Jesus Bonilla, Terele Pavez.
Directed by Alex de la Iglesia.
Alex de la Iglesia is a Spanish director who has a talent for the offbeat and the comically grotesque. He made one of the ugliest road films, Perdita Durango. In La Comunidad, he brings his wild ideas and style under more control - or, he focuses them better. This means that La Communidad is truly an original.
Carmen Maura is a larger than life Spanish star who has appeared in several of Almodovar's films. She is intense and dominating. Here she plays a woman working for an estate agent who decides to move into one of the apartments she is trying to sell. She has no idea of what she has let herself in for. Neither do we, the audience. So, we follow the crazy happenings in the building (much of which is in a state of collapse, very handy for some of the chases and dangers to come) as she finds a corpse and a huge amount of money. As she tries to get away with it, she learns something of what community solidarity is like. Everyone in the building has a claim - and they take it very seriously. Maura finds herself pursued in lifts, up and down stairs, swinging from buildings, leaping over rooves with various greed driven characters in pursuit. It is all rather breathless, filmed in flamboyant style to show us how a Spanish black comedy can be made.
1. A Spanish black comedy? Real and surreal? The characteristics of the director?
2. The Madrid setting, the old feeling, the interiors, the boom, the attic, the staircases…? The exteriors, the buildings, roofs, …? The musical score?
3. The title, the Spanish focus on the community in the building, the English title and the emphasis on, having the wealth in common, the play on Commonwealth?
4. The possibility of the plot, Julia and her story, the old man dead, the sources of his money, hiding it, 20 years, the greedy members of the apartment block? His death, Julia and her discovery, the reaction of the householders?
5. The theme of greed, Julia herself, her husband and his having been fired? The old man and his walking? The malignant greed of the householders? Putting it into vicious action?
6. Julia, her age, real state, the building, the husband being fired, the different, going into the room, the sexual action, the cockroaches, the collapse and the revelation of the the body?
7. The fireman, going into the room, the cat in the body, corrupt?
8. Julia, the money, the amount, hidden, finding it, wanting to leave?
9. The range of characters in the building : the manager, dominant, his tactics? The man with the Darth Vader mask? The visuals woman, the old ladies… The 15 characters?
10. Their behaviour, the tactics, killings, violence?
11. The pursuit of Julia, her going onto the roof, the bizarre happenings in chases, the Darth Vader man…?
12. The tone of the Indian? Julia – any change of heart? The householders?
