Basilio Martín Patino: Freedom and Independence

Parallel Sections
Canciones para después de una guerra (Songs for After a War)
Basilio Martín Patino, José Luis García Sánchez
Spain, 1971
35mm | 102min. | Colour
Production: Julio Pérez Tabernero

Photography: José Luis Alcaine
Editor: José Luis Peláez
Screenplay: Basilio Martín Patino, José Luis García Sánchez
 
Sinopsis
A sharp, emotive look at postwar Spain that draws viewers in and plays with rhythms, images and sounds, making subtle mental associations without resorting to conventional plot devices. The Proustian madeleine that turns its inner cogs is a collage of naive signs rescued from the dustbin of memory: songs from the neighbour's yard, patriotic songs, religious hymns, school songs and bar songs; kids' comics, radio commercials; scenes of hunger, fear, despair. And the paradoxical need to sing, driven by the impulse to survive. A unique, daring piece that rebels against every academic, industrial, political or aesthetic regulation. It was banned, pointlessly, for years until the dictator died and amazed hundreds of thousands of Spaniards of all ages and walks of life. This is the ‘after' of the Spanish Civil War, of any war; years later, its demystifying lens bringing the remains of the shipwreck into sharp focus.
 
Festivals
International Film Exposition Hollywood, 1971