Black fade out
Everything is black, the origin and the end. Existence isn’t more than a useless road from our initial black to the wished light. In fact, black is light’s absence just for the observer and that’s like this because the whole light is contained in black objects. So our eyes just can see the objects that reject the light we finally see and the ones that contain it are black for us, a curious metaphor of our society which is born from our limited senses.
Festival de Cinema Negre de Manresa, FECINEMA, get dressed in black since its first edition twelve years ago. So, one waits a festival containing the whole cinema’s industry light. This year’s program contained the light of the last works of Atom Egoyan, Takeshi Kitano, Bertrand Tavernier and the first full-length film by Paco Cabezas, Carne de neón (2010), which received the audience’s admiration and became the best official section’s film. I want to emphasize the big presence of European films with works as stimulant as Schemer (2010) by the television Hanro Smitsman or the magnificent Des hommes et des dieux (2010) by Xavier Beauvois. This is not a demerit of American cinema which was represented by as excellent films as The perfect host (2010) by Nick Tommay.
Particularly, the retrospective dedicated to Claude Chabrol was very pleasant. He died few days before the festival. It was a great pleasure to see in a full screen some of his films which represent the best expression of European cinema. He was a deep black artist and also a bon vivant. The festival’s tribute to him was brief but extremely right. He was brimming with talent and sarcastic humour in films like Inspecteur Lavardin (1986) which was preceded in the program and his career by Poulet au vinaigre (1984). They were a little tribute to one of the main filmmakers in history who was present in the festival in previous editions.
It must be reminded that Manresa is the town where Plácido (1961) by Luis García Berlanga was filmed. Berlanga had also died just a few weeks before. It’s true that it’s a caustic portrait of a prudish town but thanks to it Manresa became a main role in the first Spanish film nominated to an Oscar of Hollywood. Just Såsom i en spegel (1961) by Ingmar Bergman could avoid Manresa won that valued prize. So, Plácido became the best name for the FECINEMA prizes and Berlanga a magnificent reason for a tribute in that festival’s edition. We wish to FECINEMA a black future in the lighter sense of the word.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero
Photo by Marta Corcho Tarifa