Whilst recently reading down a list of rare,"left field" films,the first title which instantly caught my attention was an Avant-Garde documentary based around the making of Jess Franco's 1970 Count Dracula movie. Despite having never seen a single Jess Franco film before,and only knowing the basic outline to the Dracula novel,the mix of a behind the scenes doc and Avant-Garde film making sounded like an exciting,unique experience.
View on the documentary:
Replacing all of the wails and screaming with a low humming,abrasive proto-Post-Rock soundtrack scattered with the fading,natural sounds of drowning voices,director Pere Portabella, (who a few years later would help in writing the constitution of Spain) turns Franco's Horror into a fading dream. Portabella cleverly uses a number of different exposure styles to create multiple,rough surfaces of the documentary.
Along with turning the "Scream Queens" in Franco's movie into beautiful Femme Fatale's, Portabella also bravely decides to turn the documentary into a political film, by using the soundtrack to "silence" the voices of the cast and crew,and also focusing on the poorly done special effects to show that Jess's Francisco Franco like- monster image of being powerful and frightening is in reality something fake which can be destroyed with a steak through the heart.
View on the documentary:
Replacing all of the wails and screaming with a low humming,abrasive proto-Post-Rock soundtrack scattered with the fading,natural sounds of drowning voices,director Pere Portabella, (who a few years later would help in writing the constitution of Spain) turns Franco's Horror into a fading dream. Portabella cleverly uses a number of different exposure styles to create multiple,rough surfaces of the documentary.
Along with turning the "Scream Queens" in Franco's movie into beautiful Femme Fatale's, Portabella also bravely decides to turn the documentary into a political film, by using the soundtrack to "silence" the voices of the cast and crew,and also focusing on the poorly done special effects to show that Jess's Francisco Franco like- monster image of being powerful and frightening is in reality something fake which can be destroyed with a steak through the heart.