Spanish Cinema - Don Quixote

It is arguable that Cervantes’ epic comic novel, Don Quixote, does more than merely reflect on the nature of Spanish identity; the book is so important a cultural icon in that country that it has done much to actually define it. The main character is passionate, flamboyant and picaresque: he has delusions of grandeur and is more informed by the past than the present. He is, in a word, ‘quixotic’.
Interesting, then, that a Catalan film version of the story has been released. Where the Spanish are out-going, the Catalans are reserved. Where the Spanish are raw and passionate, the Catalans are sophisticated and careful; where the Spanish value individuality and bravado, the Catalans favour diligence and teamwork. Don’t, then, expect this Don Quixote to tilt at any windmills. Expect, instead, a languid story about the troubling nature of friendship.
The film is based on two of the many episodes of Cervantes’ novel, both set in Catalonia. The Barcelones director, Albert Serra, has cast two Catalans, Lluis Carbo and Lluis Serrat, in the roles of the errant knight and his servant, Sancho Panza. When they do speak, they speak to one another in Catalan, a language more related to Provençal than Castilian.
The whole piece is filmed on hand-held cameras in natural light in a woodland setting that betrays not a hint of man. Plot is minimal: the film’s value lies in what you can read between the lines, not in the lines themselves. It’s influenced by Bergman, and Bresson. Almodovar it is not. DL