Cria Cuervos

Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos. Raise ravens and they’ll gouge your eyes out. Slow, sad, painful and difficult for viewers to grasp, this awakening from Francoism is the peak work of Saura’s metaphorical period. And the film is so packed with metaphors that it is perhaps impossible to watch it except through them. This situation is not made any easier by the narrative point of view, whose strong subjectivisation we are only incidentally made aware of. During the film, Anna repeatedly transitions from the position of the one who tells the story to the role of the person about whom the story is told, which raises the question of whether the current reference point is the future or the present. In any case, the young protagonist finds no consolation either here or there. Set in an old house, the narrative is clearly laid out in spatial terms. The girls leave that old house at the end, when they join the ranks of other seemingly innocent little creatures lost between a repressed past and an uncertain future. Though the plot plays out in the middle of the political and social centre of Spain, specific references to the reality of the time behind the high walls of the house break through only exceptionally. On the inside, everything external is transformed into representative symbols, into multivalent fetishes (which is best elucidated by the taking out of the parents’ belongings). A determinative aspect comprises the transformations in the relationships between the characters, as the power games playing out between them threaten to escalate into games of life and death. Whoever sets the rules, it is safely – and fittingly for the period after the real and symbolic death of the father – not men. The multiplicity of layers of meaning, which present themselves to us only with repeated viewings, makes Cría cuervos a satisfying film in analytical terms, though unfortunately at the expense of viewer satisfaction. 75% (16/11/2012)

Probably one of those movies that simply cannot succeed with me in any way. There are interesting scenes, but either it is too local for me and I cannot relate to it, or it is simply a movie that does not captivate me. "The Old House in the Middle of Madrid" did not captivate me either and I didn't really enjoy it. (19/10/2015)