A disturbing juxtaposition of childhood and death. Carlos Saura's claustrophobic chamber piece adopts the point of view of its nine-year-old heroine (the heartbreakingly somber Ana Torrent, from Spirit of the Beehive), whose intimate acquaintance with death is highly colored by fantasy, ignorance, and innate cold-bloodedness. She, despite being thoroughly captivated by a catchy pop song, has very little knack for fun; even a backyard hide-and-seek game is chilled a bit by the tag line "Come out and be dead," and on command the game's losers must stretch themselves out in coffin postures. The various adventures of a Spanish Catholic girlhood -- getting into auntie's bras and high heels, marveling at the maid's mountainous breasts, and so on -- are pretty unimaginative for the most part. But Saura is a supremely skillful moviemaker, and he can trace a line of action with a fluid, unhurried clarity that is a pleasure to watch. The only real irritations here are his tendency to fool around with the time sequence and his tolerance for the anguished monologs spoken directly to the camera by Geraldine Chaplin (Saura's wife). (1977) — Duncan Shepherd
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