If last year, 2023, was practically monopolized by a single film, the Netflix blockbuster The snow societyof JA Bayona2024 has been characterized by variety through a melting pot of proposals of the most diverse lineage in which we find all possible genres.
There have been ‘small-big’ phenomena at the level of ticket officelike The 47 o The infiltratorby Arantxa Echevarría, but on this occasion we are in charge of bringing together the films riskier that have appeared on the billboard, those that have challenged conventions and have dared to compose works with a good dose of kamikaze bravery.
Mar Coll was one of the pioneers of the new wave of cinema directed by women in our country with the film Three days with family. Now, from the novel Mothers don’tof Katixa Aguirrecomposes a distressing and suffocating domestic drama which becomes nightmarish thriller when a woman who has just had a baby begins to become obsessed with the filicide.
A dark, disturbing work that navigates between the real and the imagined, between the atavistic and the literarywhich refers to classic tragedies and is anchored in our present to talk about the maternity and postpartum depression in an eye-opening way. One of the works braver and more subversive of recent Spanish cinema.
Carlos Marqués-Marcet had specialized in generational dramas anchored in reality (such as 10.000 km.) and, on this occasion, also part of it, but he does it in a very different way, through music and choreography that are inserted into the narrative in a most audacious exercise in our cinema.
A musical about euthanasia? Dust will be It is much more than that, it is a masterpiecefull of experimentation and that dares to treat illness and death from a perspective that we have never seen before, between the paradox of the end of existence, the pain it entails and its serene acceptance. Angela Molina y Alfredo Castro they perform separate exercises titanic composition and the soundtrack of Maria Arnal and the choreographies of The Veronal They provide a touch of extreme distinction.
This spoken in englishbut it is a totally Spanish production by The Desire. Pedro Almodovar continues his path of formal debugging and stylistic in this film that becomes one of the great achievements of his recent career.
A film that is serene on the outside and tumultuous on the inside, a melodrama as austere as it is luminous full of threads that interweave to configure one of the most beautiful friendship relationships in recent cinema, the one established by the characters of Julianne Moore y Tilda Swinton on the screen and that remains in the memory forever, in life, in death and beyond. The first Spanish film to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festivalan exquisite, modern work that shrinks from the inside.
After The girls y The maternalthe director adapted a story by Eider Rodríguezalso about illness and death (as in the case of Dust will be y The next room) but, in this case, from the point of view of a woman who will accompany her ex-husband in the last stage of his life, at the same time that she remembers her past and becomes aware of her present.
A very delicate filmin which Pilar Palomero is confirmed as one of the most important authorial voices in our country, capable of narrating practically without words the duel and provide it with a revealing emotional consistency. Huge Patricia Lopez Arnaiz y Antonio de la Torre.
He won the Golden Biznaga in it Malaga Festival and it is the film that has selected Spain to compete in the Oscar. It is a ‘biopic’ musical around the musical group The Planets but, beyond the autobiographical references, the film Isaki Lacuesta and Pol López is able to capture all the generational spirit of the ninetiesas well as the musical atmosphere of the city of Granada.
All of this through the different points of view of the protagonists and what the character itself entails. creation process for each of them. A film that connects at the same time with ‘indie’ and ‘mainstream’ and is endowed with enormous freshness and capacity for try with cinematographic language. Its three protagonists, Daniel Ibanez, Crystalline y Stephanie Magninare a real discovery.
It was the winner in the last edition of the Filmmakers’ Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival and it is the only Spanish film that is within the prestigious list of the best released this year in Cahiers du Cinema.
Jonas Trueba takes a step further within his particular universe to compose a romantic ‘anti-comedy’ about a couple (his fetish actors Sea Plum y Vito Sanz), who decide celebrate your breakup after many years together.
A film that contains a ‘meta-cinematic’ reflection on the genre itself but, above all, is a delicious artifact in which cinema and life merge and they get confused in a way as sparkling as it is riskythanks to its explicit desire to move away from conventional narratives to claim difference.
Paula Ortiz continues to prove that it is one of the most gifted filmmakers of the national scene in this film that adapts one of the most incomprehensible cases of the black chronicle Hispanic, the murder of the young prodigy Hildegart Rodríguez from his mother Aurora.
The film immerses us in the times of the Republic through the feminist activism within the turbulent panorama of the time and how ideals are decomposing due to the ideological fanaticism.
Najwa Nimri y Alba Planas They embody the main characters of a fiction that is sophisticated in form and overwhelming in substance.
A Rodrigo Cortes They set challenges for him, whether it be composing a film inside a coffin, as he did in Buried or do blow up all conventions existing and future generics to create a work that mutates at every moment and takes us through drama, comedy, musical and social (and philosophical) satire, integrating all these elements without ever shaking the pulse.
Es as brilliant as it is disconcerting and for that he deserves all respect. A Spanish film produced by Martin Scorseseeven in that, it is particular.
A Andrea Jaurrieta He also likes to escape clichés, as he demonstrated in his debut film Ana by day. Now, he returns with an atypical revenge western feminine in which he bets on a strong conceptual aesthetic (everything in the red) and for an approach that is responsible for subverting traditional patriarchal assumptions. A ‘rara review’ with drive and personality.
Dani of the Order has finally managed to make one of his films not only a box office success, but also a critical favorite (it is the most nominated for the Feroz awards). Through a choral cast spectacular, led by the veteran Emma Vilarasauwe will accompany the members of a bad avenue family during a weekend in Cadaqués to discover, at the pace of black comedyall its secrets, frustrations and confrontations. A film that is already a ‘well-deserved’ modern-classic of our cinema.
