Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1961 • Spain
Starring Cassen, José Luis López Vázquez, Elvira Quintillá
Widely considered one of the greatest works of Spanish cinema, this relentlessly paced satire chronicles an ill-advised charity campaign sweeping across a small industrial town on Christmas Eve. The brainchild of attention-hungry society women, the holiday initiative encourages wealthy citizens to break bread with the less fortunate—“if only for one night.” As the festivities devolve into a grotesque media frenzy, a struggling family man enlisted to help on the project desperately tries to make a payment on his three-wheeler before it is repossessed. Marking the start of Berlanga’s fruitful collaboration with screenwriter Rafael Azcona, this delightfully cacophonous takedown of upper-class hypocrisy unfolds in expertly choreographed long takes that showcase the director as a master of comedic mischief.
Up Next in Blue Christmas
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The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Directed by Jacques Demy • 1964 • France
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Nino CastelnuovoThe angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. She plays an umbrella-shop owner’s delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a h...
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My Night at Maud’s
Directed by Eric Rohmer • 1969 • France
In the brilliantly accomplished centerpiece of Rohmer's Moral Tales series, Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Jean-Louis, one of the great conflicted figures of sixties cinema. A pious Catholic engineer in his early thirties, he lives by a strict moral code in ...
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FANNY AND ALEXANDER: Theatrical Version
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1982 • Sweden
Starring Pernilla Allwin, Bertil Guve, Ewa FrölingThrough the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander, we witness the delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family, a sprawling bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Sweden. Ingmar Bergman intended FANNY ...
