Thirty years of hatred among two families facing each other and terminating into a burst of violence . It took place one bloody Sunday . "The 7th Day" is based on real events but the roles are fictitious as there happened ¨The Puerto Hurraco massacre¨, it was a mass murder that occurred in Puerto Hurraco, a village in Benquerencia de la Serena municipality in the Province of Badajoz, Spain on August 26, 1990, when brothers Antonio and Emilio Izquierdo fired at people in the streets with two shotguns, killing nine and wounding at least six others. The perpetrators used two 12-gauge shotguns to cause the slaughter . The two then fled, but were arrested a couple of hours later and eventually sentenced each to 684 years in prison.
This interesting film deals with a tragedy of human emotions pushed over the edge . This hard picture is well set in Spain of the late 8os , as some unfortunate events and disputes lead toward more frequent and angrier facing off , when two men set out a planned vendetta that terminates a final slaughter . Its style is pretty much sour , dry and realistic as well in the atmosphere as in the fresh dialog . ¨El Septimo Dia¨ or "The Seventh Day" shows the miseries of some amoral characters and their bloody vengeance . This film describes the rural life , including dances , character studio of local people and an enjoyable love story among a young couple . The film holds some similarity to Saura's former films such as ¨The chase¨ or ¨La caza¨ and ¨Dispara¨ or ¨Outrage , in which revenger people pick up their rifles and execute a criminal spree . Well played by known and prestigious actors such as Juan Diego , Victoria Abril , Jose Luis Gomez and Jose Garcia . And a fine plethora of notorious secondaries such as Ana Wagener , Carlos Kaniowsky , Elia Galera , Carlos Hipolito , Mariano Peña , Marivi Bilbao , brief acting by Antonio De la Torre as Cabo Guardia Civil and Eulalia Ramon , Carlos Saura's wife . And introducing three little girls such as Yohana Cobo as Isabel , Irene Escolar as Antonia and Alejandra Lozano as Encarnación . Good production design by Rafael Palmero and correctly reflecting the atmosphere by that time . Splendid photography with juicy atmosphere by Francois Lartigue . Being appropriately filmed on location , showing one colorful filming from Otero de Herreros, Segovia, Castilla y León, Spain . Atmospheric musical score by Roque Baños who composes a soundtrack plenty of Andalucian and Flamenco songs . Baños is a successful composer such as ¨Fragiles¨ , ¨The Machinist¨ , ¨Sexy beast¨ , ¨800 bullets¨ and composing Hollywood pictures such as ¨Old Boy¨ .
The motion picture perfectly produced by magnificent producer Andres Vicente Gomez was rightly directed by Carlos Saura , a good Spanish movies director . He began working in cinema in 1959 when he filmed ¨Los Golfos ¨(1962) dealing with juvenile delinquency from a sociological point of view . And of course ¨La Caza¨ or ¨The Chase¨ (1966) his most successful film , this picture deservedly won Silver Bear in the Berlin Festival . Saura is a well recognized filmmaker both nationally and internationally, and in proof of it he won many prizes among which there are the following ones : Silver Bear in Festival of Berlin for Peppermint Frappé (1967), Special Jury Awards in Cannes for La Prima Angélica (1974), and for Cría Cuervos in 1975. All of them shot at the height of his creativity, in a period cultural difficult, where the enormous censorship of the political regime exacerbated the ingenuity and imagination of the scriptwriters . Also, the film Mamá Cumple Cien Años (1979) got an Oscar nomination in 1979 as the best foreign film , and it also won the Special Jury Award at the San Sebastian Festival . He subsequently made ¨Deprisa , Deprisa¨ based on facts about juvenile delinquency in Spain since the 80s , as he tried to take a position in favour of outcast people and he got to make a both lyric and documentary-style cinema . In 1990, he won two Goyas , the Spanish Oscar , as best adapted screenplay writer and best director . Saura became an expert on Iberian musical adaptations as ¨Carmen¨ , ¨Amor Brujo¨ , ¨Bodas De Sangre¨ , ¨Sevillanas¨ ,¨Iberia¨ , ¨Salome¨, ¨Fado¨, ¨Flamenco¨ and even recently Opera as ¨Io , Don Giovanni¨
