Maidservants and middle-class señoritas in pre-developmentalist Madrid: Saura and Patino at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas

Abstract

The film production of the Spanish film schools Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas (IIEC) and its successor, Escuela Oficial de Cinematografía (EOC), offers some excellent material, both in quantitative and qualitative terms, for studying how Spanish cinema during the years of the Franco regime depicted the city of Madrid. This article proposes an initial approach to an object of study (the relationship between Madrid and IIEC-EOC) based on a detailed analysis of two medium-length films produced by this institution, which should necessarily be the subject of future research. The similarities between La tarde del domingo (Carlos Saura, 1957) and Tarde de domingo (Basilio Martín Patino, 1960) are not limited to their title and premise, but also extend to the role played by the city in both films. In both stories, Madrid is a hostile space that functions as a projection of the anguish of the two protagonists. But while in Saura’s film the threat of the city is embodied physically (the stifling tram, the lights in the shop windows, the frenetic city bustle, etc.), in Patino’s production the city is primordially an accumulation of sensations, an experience more mental than real.