echanove Review of Pasión en el mar

Pasión en el mar (1956)

Not as good as La Venganza (Bardem, 1959) but with things in common

[6/10 · 29 June 2018]

A very curious and unknown coproduction between France and Spain, wi-th a lot of antropological setting and even some folclorical details but far away of the tipical folcloric spanish genre called españolada. Shooted by Pepe Aguayo in a beautiful fiftys Agfacolor cinematography and directed by Ruiz Castillo in a semidocumentary style, with a lot of scenes outdoors, in the beach and the sea, and sailing on a ship, may be this film is not as good as "La Venganza" (Juan Antonio Bardem, 1959), and of course it didn't gain its prestige and fame, remaining as an hidden little gem, but it also deals with the hard life of some workers (fishermen in this, as Bardem did with reapers) and their laboral explotaition. And includes a torrid triangle of love and passion around a woman (Pascal Roberts), and even a fire near the end, as well. Appealing and not insignificant