The title of Carlos Saura’s Anna and the
Wolves likely evokes a children’s story, a suggestion supported by the opening
shots of Anna (Geraldine Chaplin) arriving at the isolated mansion where she’s
to take care of three young girls, and the notion of playacting and invention that runs throughout the film. Any sense of innocence though is rapidly squashed
out: all three of the brothers who occupy the house have their eye (and often
hands) on Anna as soon as she arrives, and the roleplaying (including, over
time, that of Anna herself) becomes increasingly malevolent and perverse. Juan,
the only married brother, bombards her with lewd anonymous letters, raiding the
family stamp collection to make it appear that they come from around the world;
Jose maintains a private museum of military uniforms, guns and other
memorabilia; Fernando becomes increasingly mystic (he’s even seen levitating in
one impressionistic moment), retreating into a hermit’s cave and hardly eating,
for a while impressing Anna with his apparent lack of designs on her, until his
underlying perversion comes to light. The twistedness of course has deep roots:
the family matriarch, prone to sudden fits of collapsing which seem to be
largely strategic, maintains boxes of childhood mementos for each son, although
the labeling system is chaotic, and the contents include such items as a spiked
thimble that was used to stop one of them from sucking his thumb (we’re told it
lacerated his mouth for some five months).
Nevertheless, the film’s shocking ending clarifies that for all the
bourgeoisie’s dysfunction and internal dissention, it ultimately sticks
together in perpetuation of its interests, with outsiders paying a brutal price
(Anna’s fate, and an earlier sequence involving a buried doll, bring to mind
the masses of the Franco-era disappeared). Overall, the film belongs with The
Hunt and The Garden of Delights among the incisive peaks of Saura’s
major, generally under-screened period.
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