Years before Almodovar patented his own brand of 'shock' cinema, the Basque director Eloy de la Iglesia was busy smashing every taboo of the Spanish screen. As outrageous as any film he ever made, La Criatura tells the tender and erotic love story of a respectable bourgeois housewife (Ana Belen) and a large black Alsatian dog.
Unlike Almodovar - who tends to be radical on the surface, but conservative at heart - de la Iglesia tells his lurid tale with astonishing restraint. Dark paw prints on our heroine's white wedding gown, a playful tug-of-war with a towel as she emerges from a bath, a savage attack on her husband when he tries to make love to her himself...the sexual liaison between woman and dog is made amply clear, without ever once descending into a sub-porn ghetto.
Most important, the razor-sharp psychology of this film makes it easy to empathise with Belen and her life choices. Her brutish husband (Juan Diego) is a staunch supporter of the far-right Alianza Nacional Espanol, the ideological heirs of General Franco. He hosts a TV variety show of truly toe-curling awfulness, and spends most of his time with a flashy mistress (Claudia Gravi).
When Belen refuses to have sex with her husband, he gets drunk and rapes her. (The film's one truly shocking and nasty scene!) The rape is promptly condoned by her family priest...in the name of marriage, God, the family and the sanctity of Catholic Spain. Small wonder that Belen compares Spanish society to a hall of distorting mirrors. "I am surrounded by monsters. All I can do is become more monstrous than they are!"
La Criatura lacks both the dreamy eroticism of Borowczyk's La Bete and the sly social comedy of Oshima's Max, Mon Amour. It is a full-frontal assault on post-Franco Spain, and the Fascist-era values that continue to breed and flourish. Shocking, yes - but not because its heroine finds love and sex with a beast. Shocking because, in this world, all the real beasts are human!
Unlike Almodovar - who tends to be radical on the surface, but conservative at heart - de la Iglesia tells his lurid tale with astonishing restraint. Dark paw prints on our heroine's white wedding gown, a playful tug-of-war with a towel as she emerges from a bath, a savage attack on her husband when he tries to make love to her himself...the sexual liaison between woman and dog is made amply clear, without ever once descending into a sub-porn ghetto.
Most important, the razor-sharp psychology of this film makes it easy to empathise with Belen and her life choices. Her brutish husband (Juan Diego) is a staunch supporter of the far-right Alianza Nacional Espanol, the ideological heirs of General Franco. He hosts a TV variety show of truly toe-curling awfulness, and spends most of his time with a flashy mistress (Claudia Gravi).
When Belen refuses to have sex with her husband, he gets drunk and rapes her. (The film's one truly shocking and nasty scene!) The rape is promptly condoned by her family priest...in the name of marriage, God, the family and the sanctity of Catholic Spain. Small wonder that Belen compares Spanish society to a hall of distorting mirrors. "I am surrounded by monsters. All I can do is become more monstrous than they are!"
La Criatura lacks both the dreamy eroticism of Borowczyk's La Bete and the sly social comedy of Oshima's Max, Mon Amour. It is a full-frontal assault on post-Franco Spain, and the Fascist-era values that continue to breed and flourish. Shocking, yes - but not because its heroine finds love and sex with a beast. Shocking because, in this world, all the real beasts are human!
