Tiempo de silencio
Encyclopedia
Tiempo de Silencio is a 1986
Spanish
film directed by Vicente Aranda
adapted from a well-regarded novel written by Luis Martín-Santos
. It stars Imanol Arias
, Victoria Abril
and Francisco Rabal
. Set in the 1940s, in the early days of the Franco
’s regime, the plot follows the story of an ambitious doctor who is accused of killing a woman while he tried to save her life after a botched abortion. The film is an intriguing tale of sex, death and alienation with philosophical overtones.
Pedro himself lives in a modest boarding house run by a military widow and her daughter Dora, who also has a vivacious daughter, Dorita. The owner of the boarding house tries to encourage the doctor to fall in love with his granddaughter, Dorita, so that his medical career may release them all from a life of squalor and penury. During her birthday reunion, Dorita clearly shows Pedro that she is interested in him. Pedro and his rich friend Matias discuss literature and painting in a café and later they go out for a night of heavy partying in a house of prostitution in which Matias gets involves with a prostitute that closely resembles his own mother. Returning to his boarding house, Pedro goes to Dorita’s bed. He excuses himself for being drunk, but she welcomes his advanced and they make love, starting a relationship.
Pedro is awakened at dawn by Muecas who needs his help as a doctor and begs him to save the life of his daughter, Florita, who is severely hemorrhaging after a botched abortion. Pedro tries to do what he can to save the girl’s life, but she dies in spite of his efforts. With the horrific death of her sister, Conchi reveals that Muecas was the father of the dead child in an incestuous relationship with his own daughter. Cartucho, a low life tough guy, boyfriend of the butchered Florita, is jealous of the doctor and after talking to Amador, extracts a false confession. Amador makes him wrongly belief that Pedro is guilty of having aborted the child and killed the mother. Later that day, Pedro is sought by the local police. Dorita warns him and Pedro hides in the local brothel run by Doña Luisa. Meanwhile, Matias begs Amador to tell the police the truth of Pedro's innocence, but Amador refuses to cooperate.
The police finally apprehend Pedro, who surprisingly, confesses rather than admit the truth because of the absurdity of the situation. Ricarda, Florita's mother, follows the remains of her deceased daughter to the place where the autopsy is performed. She can not calm down and is arrested for interrupting the medical examiners. Meanwhile Pedro's girlfriend, Dorita and Matias try to help him using Matias's influences in order to set Pedro free, but they do not succeed. However, in the commissary, Ricarda, realizing that the doctor has wrongly accused of her daughter death, tells what have happened. Her testimony saves the doctor from prison. To celebrate his freedom, Pedro and Dorita go to a fair. They have been followed by Cartucho, who jealously watches Pedro dance with Dorita. Still believing that Pedro is guilty of Florita's death, Cartucho takes advantage of a moment in which Pedro is away buying some sweets and stabs Dorita. When Pedro returns just a moment later, Dorita is already dead.
's Spain
in the 1950, from which Aranda himself emigrated in 1952, the same period in which the action takes place. The film adheres to an unforgiving neorealist aesthetic.
The nightmarish scene of the abortion Pedro performs on the dying Florita famously includes the chilling sound of the scalpel scraping her womb. The intrusive shots at the autopsy are extremely harsh, in keeping with the explicit portrayal of sex and violence that characterizes Aranda’s filmography.
Aranda shrewdly transformed Martins Santos’s linguistically suggestive time of ‘silence” into a visually expressive time of ‘entrapment”; furthermore the almost complete absence of music on the soundtrack has been more literally related to the novel's title. The film opens with images of caged dogs, bandaged from injuries sustained during experiments in the laboratory. The recurrent images of entrapment is not just a playful prefiguration of Pedro’s literal imprisonment, but a sober portrayal of Francoist Spain as a figurative society of imprisonment.
The final sequence resembles the murder scene in Alfred Hitchcock
’s Strangers on a Train
(1951) as Cartucho stalks his victim, and like Hitchcock, points to the incongruity between the jaunty fairground music and the brutal murder.
The film, unlike the novel that was based upon, brings out the oppressive atmosphere of Spain's post-civil war years. When Spain was seeking enlightenment and freedom but was strangled in the vortex of darkness, ignorance and day to day survival. There is no let-up to the pessimism. Aranda's work is bleak, ugly, beautiful; and unrelenting.
The final voice over of Pedro in his laboratory regarding his sense of futility and oppression both underscores the meaning of the title of the film and lends it an air of literariness of the original narrative. Just as Martín Santos's novel portrays a Spain that is backward and repressed, with its intellectuals trapped in a time of silence, so too does the cinematographic adaptation by Vicente Aranda. Aranda's version of the absurd world in which Pedro lives does not depend on the subtle ironies of the literary text, however; instead some scenes elicited overt laughter from the audience.
only. There are not English
subtitles. The extras include an interview with director Vicente Aranda and actors Imanol Arias and Juan Echanove.
1986 in film
-Events:*April 12 - Actor Morgan Mason marries The Go-Go's Belinda Carlisle.*April 26 - Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger marries television journalist Maria Shriver.*May - Actress Heather Locklear marries Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee....
Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
film directed by Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda , is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Due to his refined and personal style, he is one of the most renowned Spanish filmmakers. He started as a founded member of the Barcelona School of Film and became known for bringing contemporary Spanish novels to life on the...
adapted from a well-regarded novel written by Luis Martín-Santos
Luis Martín Santos
Luis Martín-Santos Ribera was a Spanish psychiatrist and author of Tiempo de silencio , considered one of the greatest Spanish novels of the twentieth century.-Biography:...
. It stars Imanol Arias
Imanol Arias
Imanol Arias born Manuel María Arias Domínguez , is a Spanish actor and one off film director.Imanol Arias began his career with a travelling theatre group in Spain performing in the Basque Country of northern Spain. He debuted on TV in 1976 and his first film was in "Cecilia " of 'Humberto Solas'...
, Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril is a Spanish film actress. She is best known to international audiences for her performance in the movie ¡Átame! by director Pedro Almodóvar....
and Francisco Rabal
Francisco Rabal
Francisco Rabal , perhaps better known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor born in Águilas, a small town in the province of Murcia, Spain....
. Set in the 1940s, in the early days of the Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
’s regime, the plot follows the story of an ambitious doctor who is accused of killing a woman while he tried to save her life after a botched abortion. The film is an intriguing tale of sex, death and alienation with philosophical overtones.
Plot
The story is set in Madrid in the late 1940s early 1950s during the first years of Franco’s regime. Pedro Martín, a young and ambitious doctor, is studying the effect of cancerous cells on mice, but he has run out of mice in his laboratory, since they do not breed there, and he has no funds to purchase more of these expensive laboratory animals from the United States. Nevertheless, his assistant, Amador, informs him that he gave some of the mice to an old trapper, nicknamed “el Muecas”, who lives in precarious conditions in a shanty town outside Madrid, and that this poor man has successfully bred them with the help of the natural heat of his daughters. The incredulous scientist goes to the shanty town to obtain the mice. There, Pedro meets Muecas, Muecas's wife Ricarda and their two daughters Florita and Conchi. With the warmth of the women’s breasts, as the flirtatious Florita shows Pedro, the mice are able to reproduce.Pedro himself lives in a modest boarding house run by a military widow and her daughter Dora, who also has a vivacious daughter, Dorita. The owner of the boarding house tries to encourage the doctor to fall in love with his granddaughter, Dorita, so that his medical career may release them all from a life of squalor and penury. During her birthday reunion, Dorita clearly shows Pedro that she is interested in him. Pedro and his rich friend Matias discuss literature and painting in a café and later they go out for a night of heavy partying in a house of prostitution in which Matias gets involves with a prostitute that closely resembles his own mother. Returning to his boarding house, Pedro goes to Dorita’s bed. He excuses himself for being drunk, but she welcomes his advanced and they make love, starting a relationship.
Pedro is awakened at dawn by Muecas who needs his help as a doctor and begs him to save the life of his daughter, Florita, who is severely hemorrhaging after a botched abortion. Pedro tries to do what he can to save the girl’s life, but she dies in spite of his efforts. With the horrific death of her sister, Conchi reveals that Muecas was the father of the dead child in an incestuous relationship with his own daughter. Cartucho, a low life tough guy, boyfriend of the butchered Florita, is jealous of the doctor and after talking to Amador, extracts a false confession. Amador makes him wrongly belief that Pedro is guilty of having aborted the child and killed the mother. Later that day, Pedro is sought by the local police. Dorita warns him and Pedro hides in the local brothel run by Doña Luisa. Meanwhile, Matias begs Amador to tell the police the truth of Pedro's innocence, but Amador refuses to cooperate.
The police finally apprehend Pedro, who surprisingly, confesses rather than admit the truth because of the absurdity of the situation. Ricarda, Florita's mother, follows the remains of her deceased daughter to the place where the autopsy is performed. She can not calm down and is arrested for interrupting the medical examiners. Meanwhile Pedro's girlfriend, Dorita and Matias try to help him using Matias's influences in order to set Pedro free, but they do not succeed. However, in the commissary, Ricarda, realizing that the doctor has wrongly accused of her daughter death, tells what have happened. Her testimony saves the doctor from prison. To celebrate his freedom, Pedro and Dorita go to a fair. They have been followed by Cartucho, who jealously watches Pedro dance with Dorita. Still believing that Pedro is guilty of Florita's death, Cartucho takes advantage of a moment in which Pedro is away buying some sweets and stabs Dorita. When Pedro returns just a moment later, Dorita is already dead.
Cast
The role of Dorita was significantly expanded from the novel to take advantage of Victoria Abril, marketability as an actress, to add explicit sex scenes and to contrast the passivity of Pedro's character with Dorita vivacity.- Imanol AriasImanol AriasImanol Arias born Manuel María Arias Domínguez , is a Spanish actor and one off film director.Imanol Arias began his career with a travelling theatre group in Spain performing in the Basque Country of northern Spain. He debuted on TV in 1976 and his first film was in "Cecilia " of 'Humberto Solas'...
... Pedro - Victoria AbrilVictoria AbrilVictoria Abril is a Spanish film actress. She is best known to international audiences for her performance in the movie ¡Átame! by director Pedro Almodóvar....
... Dorita - Francisco RabalFrancisco RabalFrancisco Rabal , perhaps better known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor born in Águilas, a small town in the province of Murcia, Spain....
... Muecas - Juan EchanoveJuan Echanove-Selected filmography:*Manolete *Alatriste .*Bienvenido a casa *Morir en San Hilario .*Los Reyes Magos - voz - .*Sin noticias de Dios...
...Matias - Charo LópezCharo LópezMaría del Rosario López Piñuelas is the complete name of Charo López, a Spanish actress.- Filmography :*Plan Jack cero tres *El hueso *La vida sigue igual *Ditirambo *El extraño caso del doctor Fausto...
... Charo/ Matias’ mother - Joaquín Hinojosa... Cartucho
- Francisco Algora ... Amador
- Diana Peñalver ... Conchi
- Blanca Apilánez ...Pilar
- Enriqueta Claver... Luisa
Themes
Incest, death and alienation, are the three major themes of the film. Aranda added a literary and philosophical dimension to the screenplay. The film is about government failure; individual lost of responsibility, and urban poverty. The story is framed in the post civil war years under the shadow of Franco’s regime and the yearning for freedom and enlightenment.Analysis
Tiempo de Silencio is an accurate representation of Spain post civil war period, a denunciation of the reality of FrancoFrancisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
's Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
in the 1950, from which Aranda himself emigrated in 1952, the same period in which the action takes place. The film adheres to an unforgiving neorealist aesthetic.
The nightmarish scene of the abortion Pedro performs on the dying Florita famously includes the chilling sound of the scalpel scraping her womb. The intrusive shots at the autopsy are extremely harsh, in keeping with the explicit portrayal of sex and violence that characterizes Aranda’s filmography.
Aranda shrewdly transformed Martins Santos’s linguistically suggestive time of ‘silence” into a visually expressive time of ‘entrapment”; furthermore the almost complete absence of music on the soundtrack has been more literally related to the novel's title. The film opens with images of caged dogs, bandaged from injuries sustained during experiments in the laboratory. The recurrent images of entrapment is not just a playful prefiguration of Pedro’s literal imprisonment, but a sober portrayal of Francoist Spain as a figurative society of imprisonment.
The final sequence resembles the murder scene in Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
’s Strangers on a Train
Strangers on a Train (film)
Strangers on a Train is an American psychological thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on the 1950 novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. It was shot in the autumn of 1950 and released by Warner Bros. on June 30, 1951. The film stars Farley Granger, Ruth Roman,...
(1951) as Cartucho stalks his victim, and like Hitchcock, points to the incongruity between the jaunty fairground music and the brutal murder.
The film, unlike the novel that was based upon, brings out the oppressive atmosphere of Spain's post-civil war years. When Spain was seeking enlightenment and freedom but was strangled in the vortex of darkness, ignorance and day to day survival. There is no let-up to the pessimism. Aranda's work is bleak, ugly, beautiful; and unrelenting.
The final voice over of Pedro in his laboratory regarding his sense of futility and oppression both underscores the meaning of the title of the film and lends it an air of literariness of the original narrative. Just as Martín Santos's novel portrays a Spain that is backward and repressed, with its intellectuals trapped in a time of silence, so too does the cinematographic adaptation by Vicente Aranda. Aranda's version of the absurd world in which Pedro lives does not depend on the subtle ironies of the literary text, however; instead some scenes elicited overt laughter from the audience.
Reception
Tiempo de Silencio was criticized for failing to match the highly regarded novel on which it was based. The novel, written by Martin Santos, has a labyrinthine fragmented structure and ironic narrator. It has been described as "a novel written by an intellectual, about intellectuals and intended to be read by intellectuals". However, there is general recognition in contemporary reviews and subsequent scholarly criticism that Tiempo de Silencio is one of the most artistically successful literary adaptations of the 1980s in Spain’s filmography.DVD release
Tiempo de Silencio was released on a region 2 DVD on June 19, 2007. The film is in SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
only. There are not English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
subtitles. The extras include an interview with director Vicente Aranda and actors Imanol Arias and Juan Echanove.