Párpados

I’m talking about ARREBATO (1979), of course.While Zulueta can be compared to other great filmmakers like Lynch or Buñuel, watching his brief filmography (he had no luck with the film industry) it’s obvious that he has his own, magnificent style. An style that combines surrealism, fantasy and most important, the exploration of the fascinating human mind (ARREBATO was a film about an obsession and a dependence).If someone was in Spain around the 80’s and watched the TV (far better than the actual one, by the way) from those years, PARPADOS will look familiar. The style of TV-series like “Turno de oficio”, “La mujer de tu vida” and others is here (Madrid, 80’s, ‘Movida’, Almodóvar, Fernando Colomo, etc.) and the same actors too. But the man behind the camera is Zulueta, and this may create a surprise due to the greatness and complexity of the movie and the facts that this is television and not cinema and it’s more close (in some ways) to Almodóvar’s particular world (again: Madrid, 80’s) than to ARREBATO.The story is not easy to summarize. It’s a tale about duality, about 2 characters (Poncela, from ARREBATO, and Paredes) who share a strange connection and maybe, just maybe, are the same person (“My name is Carlos, and Carmen”). We have some scenes taken from differents points of view, two twin sisters who sing and dance (again, the duality) and lots of repeated dialogues and beautiful music only barely listened in the background…This is Zulueta at his best, and this is PARPADOS, a TV-movie that leaves you with the same feeling than Alain Robbe-Grillet’s LA BELLE CAPTIVE (1983), where what was seen and heard was more important than the story and the plot…PARPADOS is almost unavailable (spanish TV has shown it recently, though) but it is, of course, a must see.