In 1955, director Juan
Antonio Bardem attended a symposium called the Salamanca Congress that gathered
filmmakers from varied political persuasions to discuss the pitiful state of
Spanish cinema under the Franco regime. His statement didn't mince words: "After
60 years of filmmaking, Spanish cinema is politically ineffective, socially
false, intellectually worthless, aesthetically nonexistent, and industrially
crippled." His solution was to lead by example. Bardem's loaded melodrama Death
Of A Cyclist
closely resembles Luchino Visconti's neo-realist Ossessione in that it imports the
language and genre from another country—in Visconti's case, James M.
Cain's classic noir The Postman Always Rings Twice—and uses it to
nudge its national cinema in a different direction. For his part, Bardem
combines Alfred Hitchcock's visual elegance and suspense with the
class-consciousness of neo-realism, and the new equation lets him smuggle
across some subversive ideas.
Death Of A Cyclist opens with the eponymous
incident, as a speeding car collides with a bicycle in the middle of a barren
rural expanse. A man jumps out of the passenger side and rushes to aid the
fallen cyclist, but the driver, a startlingly beautiful, well-appointed woman,
beckons him back to the car. The situation is potentially compromising for
them: They're having an affair, and if it's exposed, both risk a precipitous
fall down the social ladder. As news of the victim's eventual death circulates
in the papers, the man, a geometry professor played by Alberto Closas, becomes
overwhelmed with guilt and a desire to come clean. Meanwhile, his wealthy
mistress (Lucia Bosé) frets over intimations of blackmail coming from a pianist
who may have seen something.
A passionate Communist
ideologue, Bardem lays out the class politics surrounding this hit-and-run a
bit too bluntly at times, to where all but Closas are reduced to whatever
social station they're meant to represent. But Death Of A Cyclist addresses all the
grievances that Bardem mentioned at Salamanca, and it succeeds most at
capturing the general climate of fear and oppression in Franco's Spain. In this
atmosphere, doing the right thing takes enormous courage and invites enormous
consequences, and the chilling effect is palpable.
Key features: The liner notes include a helpful primer
on Bardem by USC professor Marsha Kinder, plus Bardem's scathing address to the
Salamanca. The sole feature on the disc is a passable 45-minute documentary on
Bardem from 2005.