Death of a Cyclist [1955]

At a convention on Spanish cinema held at Salamanca in 1955, under the draconian Franco regime, Bardem had launched a now-famous scathing attack on its then status. Released in the same year, Death of a Cyclist, despite the era of heavy censorship, managed to be an arresting distillation of everything he wanted films to be. This simultaneously psychologically incisive, emotionally affecting, politically conscious and stylistically dazzling film provided a terrific portrayal of guilt, fear, deceit and the feeble attempts at reconciling with oneself, and a searing indictment of the regime’s bourgeois collaborators. It begins with a stray cyclist being accidentally hit by a speeding car and the man left to die on the road. The occupants of the car are the adulterous couple Juan (Alberto Closas), a professionally failed mathematics teacher, and the incredibly alluring Maria (Lucia Bosé) who’s married to a wealthy businessman (Otello Toso). The prime driving force for him turns out to be the deep sense of guilt – not just for their dastardly act, but also because of the choices he has made in his life, particularly those relating to his socio-political inaction, lack of will in challenging the status quo and for having compromised on his ideals; his guilt, therefore, is the guilt of an entire class, and not just that of an individual. For her, however, it is fear – the fear of losing her comfortable and cocooned lifestyle, compounded by the presence of a grotesque looking journalist (Carlos Casaravilla) who loathes the vacuous and complacent privileged class. The film’s social realism was brilliantly counterpointed by its noirish style and fatalist mood, emphasized by the fabulous cinematography replete with expressionistic visuals and low-angle shots.

Director: Juan Antonio Bardem
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: Spanish
Country: Spain