Cría Cuervos…

Ana Torrent is little known outside of Spain, but art-house film lovers will always remember her fondly as one of the most mesmerizing child actresses in the history of cinema. She's now 41, and still a popular actress in Spain, but her best-known performances hail from her first two films: the 1973 classic The Spirit of the Beehive and Carlos Saura's contemplative 1976 drama Cría Cuervos (a title derived from the Spanish proverb "raise ravens and they'll peck out your eyes"). Here, Torrent plays eight-year-old Ana, raised in a large house in Madrid (with her two sisters) by an emotionally chilly aunt following the death of her father, an important officer in the military. Ana's mother (played by Geraldine Chaplin) succumbed to illness years earlier, but as Saura seamlessly combines reality and fantasy, the mother reappears as a manifestation of Ana's mourning. Because Cría Cuervos was produced while General Franco was on his deathbed and Spain was at a major sociopolitical turning point, the film's evocative treatment of childhood, memory, and turbulent change struck a resonant chord, making it a surprising box-office success. Decades removed from its historical setting, Cría Cuervos remains a fascinating portrait of childhood that doesn't hinge on an awareness of its political context (although an accompanying booklet featuring a critical essay by film scholar Paul Julian Smith is certainly helpful in providing an appreciation for the film's deeper meanings). DVD extras on this fine Criterion Collection release include 2007 interviews with Chaplin and Torrent, as well as a documentary profile of director Saura. Recommended. [Note: as part of their Eclipse line, Criterion has also newly released Carlos Saura's Flamenco Trilogy, which collects Blood Wedding (1981), Carmen (1983), and El Amor Brujo (1986) in a three-disc boxed set priced at $44.95.] (J. Shannon)