Viva la muerte 1971

Viva la muerte 1971
Storyline
At the end of the Spanish civil war, Fando, a boy of about ten, tries to make sense of war and his father's arrest. His mother is religious, sympathetic to the Fascists; his father is accused of being a Red. Fando discovers that his mother may have aided in his father's arrest. Sometimes we witness Fando imagining explanations for what's going on; sometimes we see him at play, alone or with his friend Thérèse. Oedipal fantasies and a lad's natural curiosity about sex and death mix with his search for his mother's nature and his father's fate. Will Fando survive the search?
User review:
Whether you like them or not, the images are haunting. I saw this film 31 years ago and still remember some sequences vividly. You might argue that the anarcho-surrealism is intellectualised, a pose. But you cannot deny that it is effective. The message gets across, even if a sledgehammer approach is required. But it also is very poetic: the poetry of cruelty. I suppose this kind of establishment bashing was considered very chic in those days. Now it looks dated, unfortunately. But at the time, it shook me profoundly.
Director: Fernando Arrabal (as Arrabal)
Writers: Fernando Arrabal (by) (as Arrabal), Fernando Arrabal (novel) (as Arrabal)
Stars: Anouk Ferjac, Núria Espert, Mahdi Chaouch