![]() ![]() She has now grown into an infantilised adult who lives under the control of her psychiatrist husband, and falls prey to Luis’s blackmail. As a girl, Bárbara (Bárbara Lennie, in an iconic performance), somehow caused the downfall and imprisonment of her former school teacher Damián (José Sacristán). Alicia (Lucía Pollán) is a teen dying from leukaemia whose father Luis (Luis Bermejo), a taciturn out-of-work teacher, will do whatever it takes to get the money that buys her the hugely expensive ‘magical girl’ costume Alicia secretly desires. The story, set in contemporary Madrid but largely shot in airless interiors involves two different ‘magical girls’ (a trope borrowed from Japanese anime), connected through the sombre men who gravitate around them. The film is riddled with bewildering gaps and ellipses but what emerges is a perfectly formed, hyper-dark world. Modest in terms of budget (with an estimated cost of half-million euros, and no public subsidies nor substantial investment from the television channels) but with notable formal ambition, Magical Girl builds on the strengths of Vermut’s internet cult hit Diamond Flash (2011), unspooling a bizarre story of blackmail and retribution. ![]() In this regard, the bestowing of the two top prizes, the Golden Shell and the Silver Shell for best director, on second-time director Carlos Vermut for Magical Girl, rewarded risk over consensus. This turned out to be a bumper year for cinema made in Spain, with some films confidently exploring themes and styles beyond what may be deemed the national industry’s familiar comfort zone. Among the many possible paths into the packed programme, this post trails the Spanish/Latin American selection (with a small European detour) that I managed to catch in my stay during the second half of the festival. With nearly 150 films on offer in the Official Competition and sidebar sections, plus an extensive sample of contemporary East European Cinema under the banner “Eastern Promises”, the 2014 San Sebastian Film Festival was a serious case of an embarrassment of riches. [Note: scholars and fans of the film director Icíar Bollaín, mentioned, below, might like to revisit Mediático next week for some great new resources on her work.) ![]() Vidal is author of Figuring the Past: Period Film and the Mannerist Aesthetic (Amsterdam University Press, 2012) and Heritage Film: Nation, Genre and Representation (Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press, 2012), and co-editor of The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture (with Tom Brown, Routledge, 2014) and Cinema at the Periphery (with Dina Iordanova and David Martin-Jones, Wayne State University Press, 2010). Mediático is delighted to present a report on the 62nd International San Sebastian Film Festival (19/27 September, 2014) by Belén Vidal, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College, London. ![]()
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