Cuadecuc, vampir (1971)

Vampir-Cuadecuc is possibly a key film in understanding the transition in the Spanish film world from the period of the "new cinemas" (permitted by the Franco government) towards the illegal, clandestine or openly antagonistic practices against the Franco regime. It consists of shooting the filming of a commercial film Count Dracula by Jesús Franco. Portabella practices two types of violence on the standard narrative: he totally eliminates color and substitutes the soundtrack with a landscape of image-sound collisions by Carles Santos. Filmed provocatively in 16mm and with sound negative, the tensions between black and white favor the strange "fantasmatic materialism" of this revealing analysis of the construction mechanism for the magic in dominant narrative cinema, which at the same time constitutes a radical intervention in the Spanish cinematographic institution.

An extremely interesting documentary although not usually quite like this. It relates to a film being made by Jess Franco of Count Dracula (1970) during General Franco's regime, by Pere Portabella which is a mix of footage and other angles, also of his own bits along the way. He often uses surrealist like solarised images by overexposure shots. Especially in the woods with the horse and coaches most affective, also with the dry ice used for the mist and plays around with it. The sound, but no dialogue, is rather clever although rather annoying near the end as if the sound has been stuck. It is really good seeing Christopher Lee here in black & white and silent with a lot of age added. It was also good to see Herbert Lom here but of course it is really great to see Soledad Miranda, and the odd smile for us, and then killed in a crash weeks away.