Third film session of the Luis García Berlanga retrospective, with the screening of the feature Boyfriend in Sight (1951).

16 MAR | SUN | 5PM

NOVIO A LA VISTA | BOYFRIEND IN SIGHT

Luis García Berlanga | ESP | 1954 | 83’

This comedy by Berlanga takes place during the last months of the First World War, although it presents itself with a semblance of the belle époque. Set in a fictional seaside resort (an image Berlanga would return to in other works), the film focuses on a group of wealthy Spaniards enjoying their summer vacation while Europe is being devastated by war. Ironizing Spain's neutrality in the conflict, the plot tells of another kind of war: young Loli is forced into adulthood by her mother, who spares no effort to secure her a marriage to a boy from another equally wealthy family. The outbreak of this generational war between fathers and sons is also fueled by three elderly men who, with lies and in the manner of a Greek chorus, boast about their youthful military exploits while reporting on the progress of the German, French and British battlefronts. Always maintaining a jocular tone, Berlanga doesn't shy away from pointing the finger at the values and concerns of bourgeois society, without losing sight of the wider context of idle isolationism in the face of one of the conflicts that shaped the modern era."