Close Up

25 January 2020: El Cochecito

el-cochecito-marco-ferreri.jpg
Image courtesy of Pere Portabella/Films 59

El Cochecito
Marco Ferreri, 1960, 85 min
Spanish with English subtitles

Screening for the first time with its original, uncensored ending.

Produced by Pere Portabella. "Buñuelian black humor informs the social satire of this first masterpiece by Marco Ferreri (La Grande Bouffe). An elderly widower, Don Anselmo (played by the renowned Spanish actor José Isbert) is the powerless patriarch of his family. At loose ends in the large family apartment, he covets a motorized wheelchair as the key to his freedom. With this, he can buzz around town with his disabled pal Don Lucas (whose own wheelchair is a custom job), join in the wheelchair races, and become part of the fraternity of the disabled. When his family, citing his good health, refuses to indulge the request, our hero takes drastic steps: killing the kids off with rat poison, he inherits the family money and can purchase the wheelchair of his dreams. Playing on the very prevalent lack of interest in the disabled and their needs, El Conchecito is also a mordant satire on the bourgeoisie." – BAMPFA


Part of the Liberated Film Club's retrospective on Pere Portabella

"A Worm’s Tail View is Often the True One: Films by Pere Portabella", curated and produced by the Liberated Film Club, is the most complete, ambitious and creative survey of the radical Catalan filmmaker Portabella's work ever to have taken place. Close-Up is proud to act as headquarters and locus for this London-wide survey, taking place over four months at venues including ICA, Whitechapel Gallery, Cafe Oto and the University of Cambridge.

With thanks to the kind support of Institut Ramon Llull and Films 59.

More info: purge.xxx/portabella


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