Although he has experimented with different genres, cultures, and ways of making films during his filmography,… The cinematic work of Agosti Villarongawho died at the age of 69, he will remain in the viewer’s retina for the tenacity of his oppressive stories, cruel and sick as they are poetic, crafted in a deeply personal style that he rarely deviates from. We pick five milestones in a flawless author’s career.
“Behind the Glass” (1986)
The surgical Villaronga shows the fascination/repulsion relationship between a former Nazi executioner and pedophile, now locked in an iron lung, and the boy who takes care of him. With a stifling atmosphere and unbearable tension, the film is inspired by the fascination with evil represented by the 15th century French soldier Gilles de Rais, convicted of occult practices, sexual assault and murder.
Moon Child (1989)
An ambitious, poetic, adventurous and imaginative proposal that did not resonate with the public. The son of the moon in the title is the white European child, who knows the story of a black tribe eagerly awaiting the arrival of their god, meticulously embodied in a white child. It stars Maribel Martin, Lucia Bossuet, Gunther Meissner – the Nazi from the previous film – and Lisa Gerard, Dead Can Dance singer.
“The Sea (2000)
Two children reflect on the horrors of war when the civil war reaches Majorca. A decade later they find themselves in a tuberculosis sanatorium. Religion, mutual admiration, and physical attraction mingle in this new foray into repressive camera cinema. One of the screenwriters is Anthony Aloy, with whom Villaronga appeared briefly in his film The CEO, According to Another Turn of the Screw.
Pa Negre (2010)
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Again, as in “El mar” – and in the later “Incerta glòria” – traces of the Spanish Civil War. These are rough post-war times, but Pa negre isn’t just another movie about war. Based on the novel by Emily Texdor, it tests a child’s conscience in a cold, rural setting filled with corpses, suspicions, and lies. Villaronga’s visual ideas control the text.
sea belly
Starring the most regular actor, Roger Casamior, who made Villaronga’s debut in El mar, El ventre del mar recreates, in black and white and a particular design, the 1816 French shipwreck that would have led to the encore. To the canvas “The Raft of Jellyfish”, while contemplating the recent wrecks of small boats with immigrants. Reality, representation and symbol.
