Jose Antonio Valdelomar Gonzales asks Berta Socuellamos to be his girlfriend. She agrees. She integrates quickly into his gang of bank robbers. For a while, things go very nicely. They make large scores, leave no important clues, and she is saving money to buy an apartment for them. Then a job goes wrong.
The most notable thing about this movie by Carlos Saura is that the six top roles -- the men in the gang, Srta Socuellamos, and another member's girl friend -- were found in casting calls for non-professional actors. Only one of them appeared on the screen again. Gonzales died 11 years later of a drug overdose in prison, where he was arrested for bank robbery. Rumors abound about the production, most of them scurrilous. I won't take Saura too much to task for this sort of casting; from Academician "theory of types" to Robert Bresson, to Eastwood in THE 15:17 TO PARIS, directors have undertaken to cast non-professional in key roles, sometimes under elaborate theories, sometimes because you admire what they did, and sometimes because, well, why hire some one to play Audie Murphy, when he's on the payroll as an actor?
Saura does get good performances out of them, by directing them to maintain low affects and keeping their lines simple. He crafts believable situations, tense bank robberies, and so forth. So it's a very well made movie. If anything, it demonstrates another Academician theory, the Kuelshov Effect, which is that acting is largely irrelevant to acting; the audience infers the thoughts of the actors by how the shots are edited together.
The most notable thing about this movie by Carlos Saura is that the six top roles -- the men in the gang, Srta Socuellamos, and another member's girl friend -- were found in casting calls for non-professional actors. Only one of them appeared on the screen again. Gonzales died 11 years later of a drug overdose in prison, where he was arrested for bank robbery. Rumors abound about the production, most of them scurrilous. I won't take Saura too much to task for this sort of casting; from Academician "theory of types" to Robert Bresson, to Eastwood in THE 15:17 TO PARIS, directors have undertaken to cast non-professional in key roles, sometimes under elaborate theories, sometimes because you admire what they did, and sometimes because, well, why hire some one to play Audie Murphy, when he's on the payroll as an actor?
Saura does get good performances out of them, by directing them to maintain low affects and keeping their lines simple. He crafts believable situations, tense bank robberies, and so forth. So it's a very well made movie. If anything, it demonstrates another Academician theory, the Kuelshov Effect, which is that acting is largely irrelevant to acting; the audience infers the thoughts of the actors by how the shots are edited together.