La madriguera

Switching between the mode of reality and pretense, the invasion of reality into the game and vice versa, and the attempt to leave the game and reach reality. It all starts as a classic psychosis, here in the form of the escape of a frustrated person into the world of fantasy. Only through the non-existent world can the heroine survive the real world. However, fortunately, the film does not end here, but also involves the husband in the game, and with his arrival, the effort to achieve the opposite direction begins, that is, the effort to break free from the game back into reality. At first, the husband pretends to play the game only to help his wife escape from it. However, in the end, both of them get more and more involved in pretending the unreal, and from that moment on, we witness their desperate attempt to break through the bubble of falsehood that surrounds them and crash back into reality. It is paradoxical at first sight that they achieve this only when they physically harm themselves – by spitting, hitting, shooting – as only in this way can the modern person leave their isolation behind, which they definitively abandon only through a definitive act. The most touching is the husband's final contempt for his wife's faked suicide - he would truly prefer to see her die because only then could she reach reality. Saura, as always, has a great crisis – vicissitude - catharsis, but again a lengthy exposition and collision. (2015.07.02)