Umbracle (1972) — documentary film. Directed by Pere Portabella. Starring Christopher Lee, Jeannine Mestre, Miguel Bilbatúa, Román Gubern.
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An experimental film deconstructing cinematic representation and critiquing Francoist Spain through avant-garde montage and disjointed sound.
Documentary · 6/10 · 85 min · 1972
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.
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Related entry on Wikidata (Q7881378), public domain (CC0).