Cria Cuervos

The clip above (while awesome) probably doesn’t illustrate why Cria Cuervos has inspired change or promotes a positive message. In watching the film, which is the story of a young girl who lives with her two sisters in Madrid and also happens to repeatedly see her dead mother, it is important to know that it was shot while Franco, the fascist Spanish dictator, was on his deathbed when director Carlos Saura made it. It is important because the film is not only the story of a girl and her head mother, but also about fascism and the effect of fascism on the people of Spain, specifically the middle class. It’s a film that tackles and masters a difficult time period and one that required thought and discussion.

Saura’s shooting the film while Franco was on his deathbed  not only critiqued the state while Franco was still technically in power, but also made a film that ended with a sense of hope for the people of Spain.  In the word’s of Saura:

Well obviously, I tried to make political films but not directly political for obvious reasons. It was important to be imaginative (in criticizing the state) but after the demise of Franco I felt liberated from the duty to make political cinema.

Something else the film does, that isn’t necessarily political but I think is something not done often enough in movies, is depict childhood in a very honest and real way. Saura’s mixing of reality and fantasy beautifully illustrates the fragility of childhood.  All too often children are portrayed in ways that make them seem beyond their years and we aren’t able to appreciate their innocence.

Watch this film to see how it pushed the envelope and then takepart to read up on Francisco Franco.

Cria Cuervos was not nominated for and did not win an Academy Award®