Cria!

Eight-year-old Ana lives in a large house in Madrid with her two sisters. Her mother is dead, and her father died one night while he was with a woman guest. Ana believes she killed him: she put the powder she found in the kitchen into his glass. An aunt moves in and tries to impose order. Ana goes on seeing her mother, who walks through the rooms and talks to her. The film describes death from a child's view without turning it into a fable. What Ana remembers, imagines and lives through all sit on the same plane, and which is real is never stated. The closed house, the authority of a father from the army, and an era ending outside can all be read at once. Carlos Saura wrote and directed, produced by Elias Querejeta. Ana Torrent plays Ana, and Geraldine Chaplin plays both the mother and the grown Ana. It was shot in the summer of 1975 while Franco lay dying, and opened in Madrid on 26 January 1976. It won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1976. Jeanette's song Porque te vas, played through the film again and again, had been almost unheard in 1974; the film made it a hit across Europe and took it to number one in Germany. Who it is for: anyone who likes Spanish cinema, films told through a child's eyes, and allegories of the Franco years. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a clear narrative. The time frames interlock, the pace is very slow, and the political layer stays closed to anyone who does not know the period.