Truchas, Las (1978)

Director:

José Luis García Sánchez

Writers:

José Luis García Sánchez (writer)
Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón (writer)

Release Date:

4 August 1978 (Finland)

Plot:

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Héctor Alterio	...	Gonzalo
Juan Amigo	...	Emiliano
Ofelia Angélica
Carmen Arévalo
María Teresa Arteche
Norma Baracoa
Mary Carrillo
Francisco Casares
Fernando Chinarro
Luis Ciges
Carla Cristi
Maria Luisa De la Cruz
Julián del Monte
Emilio de Diego
María Elena Flores
Roberto Font	...	Sebastian
Verónica Forqué
Irene Foster
Antonio Gamero
Manuel Garcia
Manuel Huete
Paloma Hurtado
Montserrat Julió		(as Monserrat Julio)
Elisa Laguna
Concha Leza
José Lifante
Verónica Llimera
Alejo Loren
Federico Méndez
Amparo Merino
Lautaro Murúa
Aramis Ney
Carlos Oller
Antonio Passy
Luis Politti	...	Don Jose Maria
Raul Pozos
Susana Prados
Antonio Requena	...	Antonio
Jose Maria Riera
Javier Romero
Marichu Rosado
Juan Sala
Yelena Samarina
Carlos Sánchez
Enrique San Francisco
Heinrich Starhemberg		(as Enrique Gregor)
Cristina Torres
Amparo Valle
Alfonso Vallejo
Juan Jesús Valverde	...	Juan Alberto
Walter Vidarte

Directed by
José Luis García Sánchez

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
José Luis García Sánchez		writer
Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón		writer

Cinematography by
Magín Torruella

Production Companies

• Arandano S.A.

Also Known As:

Trout (International: English title)

Country:

Spain

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Arandano S.A.

a fish called wander

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I feel strangely honoured to be the only person who remembers this movie well enough to comment on it in this distinguished forum.

As far as I'm concerned, you can have your "plan nine from outer space". I remember THIS is the worst film I have ever seen.

It was a long time ago, it was in the middle of a film festival, and I had probably been overindulging. And I suspect that this was on 16mm, with that horrible, boomy, incomprehensible sound that was so chic in the 70's...

In other words, the circumstances of presentation may have influenced my impression.

As I recall, it was a sub-Bunuel sort of thing Skewering the Pretensions of the Middle Classes, &c. But this is Bunuel improved: by removing all the jokes. Satire, without humour - a very high-toned moral seriousness that doesn't manage to make a Spanish tragedy of Castille soap.

So there's lots of claustrophobic angst, loudly, in Spanish; and the slightly surreal plot makes the histrionics seem like the setup for a joke. (I don't speak the Spanish, myself, and hence relied on subtitles, which weren't funny. But I suppose there exists the possibility of a long, dry Monty Python joke. Mais j'en doute, as we say in Welsh.) I should add that this movie was made very close to the end of Franco's dictatorship, and I would think that 'claustrophobic angst' was probably a fairly realistic and accurate portrayal of many Spaniards' mindset at the time. As with German Expressionism, the tone of the film tells truths about the time it was made in. Unlike 'Caligari', however, this just ain't a great movie.

The plot: at a wedding, a repellent family of affluent Spaniards feasts on trout that has gone a bit off. (A cultural studies perfesser would certainly note that there is a foreshadowing here of the decomposition motif in "A Z and Two Noughts".) As I recall, everybody dies at the end, and no-one makes the "but I didn't HAVE the trout" joke.

Actually, Las Truchas has some of the sour tone of Greenaway, but with none of the intelligence. The characters all hate each other, the film-maker hates all of the characters, and the audience leaves, suitably chastened.

Naturally, I would love to see it again.