Are men victims of circumstances and doomed to wallow in pain, misery and hatred that causes violence on others and themselves or there is a way out for hope
and peace to get it? Are men devoided of choices so they must react with acts of violence and aggression or those acts can be thought upon without being acted? And
last, are we prisoners of fate or luck or we can choose which way to go? The human experience is a singular one because despite having insticts within ourselves we
are not essentially guided by them since we have a rational mind that knows how to distinguish right from wrong, good from bad, etc, though everyone makes mistakes
here and there, some creatures seem destined to act without care and tragedy sets in. The tragic "hero" of this story appears to be a man who were born under a bad
sign with one disappointment after another of which he reacts with one tragical act after another and no chance of redemption or a change for the better will go his
way. What to do and how to live?
Ricardo Franco's film "Pascual Duarte" is based on Camilo José Cela's novel "The Family of Pascual Duarte", which is part of a literary generation called
"Tremendismo" whose goal is to show shocking, tremendous and awful events happening to characters of society. Both are brutal, depressing and extreme in its
characterization of violent acts commited by a common man. The title character is played by Jose Luis Gómez, on a devastating and unforgettable performance. Through
flashbacks, he recounts his simple yet tragic life and the events that led to his emprisonment. The Duarte household was a mess with a drunk father (Héctor Alterio)
who feels superior to everyone because he can read, unlike his wife and Pascual's mother (Paca Ojea), an illiterate woman who suffer on the hands of this man but she
also fights back. They are simple people, living of the land but they're also stricken by poverty which affects everybody early on, and to each displeasing situation
that comes his way, Pascual uses of threats, violence and killings, and no one is spared.
The movie is a grievous examination of the human condition in its dark corners and how such corners can be found in the quietest of the inviduals or as some
would the least likely person to become a murderer. Unlike a serial killer who commits murders to please himself, Duarte is man who reacts in such extreme way in
order to estinguish the shame and embarrasment people made him feel, or as revenge from wrongdoing committed with his young sister Rosario (Diana Pérez de Guzmán), the
only he ever felt some affection until he meets his wife Lola (Maribel Ferrero), and there's also some violent acts that feels like a "payback" against life whenever
a tragic hits him hard.
That latter description coems to the two gruesome killings of the story which is the infamous shooting of his dog and the stabbing of his donkey, which are all
shocking to see since they were done, apparently, for real (can't exactly prove about both instances since the one with the donkey a couple of editing tricks could
be done; and the dog scene there's a quick glitch in the image despite being a full-minute uncut shot filmed from one perspective). Those poor animals serve as an
excuse for Pascual after losing family members (the movie) or some deeper reasoning/motive (the novel, which explains exactly why). While in the book, those aspects are somewhat "understandable"
in the movie they become arbitrary and senseless - it took me a second view to find an ulterior motive for such inclusion in the story.
Duarte doesn't know other way of dealing with things, events and people. Violence is the answer, he needs to lash out against anyone who poses as a threat or
become a source of bothersome and when you analyze each moment goes in his spiral of madness and brutality where everything becomes a matter of question for the audience
you begin to analyze in a similar way, and if it was true to a character living under the rise of Francisco Franco and Fascism, who can't say we don't have similar out of control
attitudes in our daily lives. Everytime everywhere people are super mad all the time on the news and in our neighborhoods and some folks just cross the line after
reaching a breaking point and that's left is to kill the "enemy" even if the harm wasn't all that important.
As said, I've watched it two times because the first time it felt many things were missing and I haven't read the book. There were many intriguing sequences that
I needed some answers or some explanation. After reading the novel in one day, I immediately got back to it and there was some improvement. It's a pretty decent
adaptation though many drastic changes take place. If you're not interested in the movie despite reading this or other reviews I still advise you to find the novel, since
Cela creates a very compelling work where you get the know the inner side of Pascual (since he narrates the whole thing) and even a sense of empathy can be found on him, he's pitiful
whilst in the movie he's quite hateful because the screenplay makes him a distant, cold, almost silent character and most of his actions are told in a matter
that you have filling the blanks (most viewers hate that). You don't feel his existentialism, his sadness neither some meltdown moment. He just eliminates what's bothering
him.
Yet the main core of ideas is present in the movie, though the director thought it'd be interesting to place the
setting during Franco's early years in order to make an allegory about the period and criticize it as well - after all, the man had died in the previous year of the
film's release. The tyranny of such regime worked in the same sickening progressive way as Pascual's quest for blood.
Besides the theme of violence, there's plenty of room to deal with the dangers of alienation and how little by little the man is torn apart from his good ideals,
becoming blind to everthing and everyone, except for his own pain. And it's interesting to notice that the film was in the 1976 Cannes Film Festival lineup, losing the Palme D'or to "Taxi Driver" but Jose Luis Gómez won Best Actor prize for this one. Both films dealing with loneliness, alienation, violence and characters at the verge
of losing their minds and acting against everything and everyone, difference being that De Niro's character has some cause, some idealism whereas Pascual into his own
ignorance just reacting to people and things in a negative and dangerous way.
It's not an easy movie but it's one that makes its point quite clear. It's a movie that dares audiences to question about themselves (what if we were to become like
that man? Would be we doing the same exact choices or we find ways to control ourselves), question about the reality seen on media or our day-to-day reality as well. It's not destined to have a deeper meaning, but it certainly makes provoking reflections about the dark side of the human condition and the continuious struggle most of us make to remain sane in a chaotic world. As for Pascual, all is lost and fate had nothing to do with it. 6/10.
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