Ana y los lobos

A sometimes powerful, sometimes silly (the levitation scene) and always heavy political allegory. And I do mean allegory. You literally cannot move without bumping into a character/symbol and as usually occurs when humans stand for abstractions like The Military, The Church, or Moral Squalor, they lose whatever quirks and contradictions make them interestingly human and instead, as happens here, become stiff, posturing caricatures.

I will say, however, that director Carlos Saura's idea of wrapping his condemnation of Francoist Spain in a feminist package, so to speak, where hatred of and desire to dominate women is the engine that drives the whole corrupt enterprise, is an inspired one and gives this film a force that cannot be denied, so that the ending is more shattering than simply over the top. And Geraldine Chaplin's alternately playful and scornful performance as the embodiment of Threatening Womanhood is, in my opinion, the best thing she's done. Give it a B.