Umbracle

Story

Synopsis

This film turns on two basic axes: the inquiry into ways of cinematographic representation and a critical image of official Spain at the time of the Franco dictatorship. “Montage of attractions” and Brechtianism in strong doses. Umbracle is made up of fragments (some are archive footage) that resound rather than progress by unusual links, with dejá vu scenes that promise us more but remain tensely unfinished. Jonathan Rosembaun said: “few directors since Resnais have played so ruthlessly with the unconscious narrative expectations to bug us”. Learning from the feeling of strangeness caused by Rossellini as he threw well known actors into savage scenery in southern Europe. Portabella makes Christopher Lee wander around a dream-like Barcelona. Without a doubt Portabella’s most structurally complex and most profoundly political film, that is ferociously poetic.

Director

Pere Portabella

Writers

Joan Brossa, Pere Portabella

Language

Catalan; Valencian

Country

Spain

Release date

4 May 1972

Ensemble

Cast

• 

  Christopher Lee

  The Man

• Jeannine Mestre

  The Woman

• Miguel Bilbatúa

• 

  Román Gubern

• Joan Enric Lahosa

• Joan Miró