5 min.
It is considered a cult film and the passage of time, in its case, is working in its favor. A love story scandalized by history: Daniel and María are a young couple who are happily experiencing the arrival of their first child and to help in the final stretch of pregnancy, Sara, María’s sister, arrives home. This step rekindles the love that Daniel and Sara felt in the past, something that provokes Maria’s jealousy. The three form a triangle of passion in which love goes in two directions.
Jorge Grau, the director, said in several interviews that his film only talks about experiences, about real stories, and commented that its three protagonists are locked between the bars of society, bars that cannot contain desire. The main trio performs it Teresa Gimperalike Mary; Simon Andrewlike Daniel; and Serena Verganolike Sara. They complete the cast Adolfo Marsillach, José Carlos Plaza, Nuria Feliu, Félix de Pomes, Luis Induni, José Franco and Yelena Sacarina.
Silver shell for Sofía Vergano
Filmed in 1966 in Barcelona, Grau’s favorite film setthe story of the film jumps from the family house to the street, to Las Ramblas and the Vallcarca neighborhood. In the film there is a special musical performance, with the artist Núria Feliu who performs a song in Catalan, composed by Jorge Grau himself and León Borrell. She sings while Daniel and his sister-in-law are together in a dimly lit room.
a love story It hit theaters in February 1968. The reception was lukewarm and a certain controversy was created among some sectors of society, who understood that it attacked morality and went beyond the limits of decency: the film raises a ‘possible’ infidelity and a love between two brothers-in-law.
Poster for ‘A Love Story’, by Jorge Grau
To the San Sebastián Film Festival
But then it had other readings and there are many its defenders. “It is a heartfelt, intimate approach to the world of petty-bourgeois mediocrity with all that is endearing and desperate at the same time,” wrote Joan Lorente-Costa. And Fotogramas highlighted it “for its simplicity, its status as a well-made work and its absence of pretensions, narrating a minimal story framed in a certain context.” In 1967 the film was presented in the official section of the San Sebastián Film Festival, but the Golden Shell went to Two on the roadby Stanley Donen. But the team did not return empty: Serena Vergano won the Silver Shell for best actress.
Serena Vergano receives the Silver Shell for ‘A Love Story’ at the San Sebastián Film Festival
Who is Serena Vergano?
Adalgisa Serena Maggiora Vergano, daughter of film director Aldo Vergano, she was born in Milan in 1943 and soon launched herself into the world of acting. When he was 20 years old he traveled to Spain to film a Count Sandorf and decided to stay. For years she was the muse of the call The School of Barcelonaa cultural and social movement that breathed the same air as the New wave and the Free cinema. He filmed in Catalonia and Madrid, and worked with a newcomer Vicente Aranda and Jaime Camino. He filmed two films with Raphael, When the sun sets y Whatever they say, and also participated in the documentary Schizo, rMade by Ricardo Boffil, with whom she married and had Ricardo Boffil Jr., who was the husband of Chábeli Iglesias, the eldest daughter of Julio Iglesias and Isabel Preysler.
A ‘discontinued’ director
A Love Story is one of the films he was most satisfied with, and he shot more than twenty of them! He started in the cinema as an assistant director and worked in The colossus of Rhodes, by Sergio Leone. In 1962, after directing the documentary Ocharcoaga, he made his feature film debut with summer nightperformed by Francisco Rabal, María Cuadra and Gian Maria Volonté. Then came tapes like The spontaneous, Actaeon y A love story, whose controversy was buried with the filming of Tuset Street, given that Sara Montiel, protagonist and producer, felt attacked and ignored by the gauche divine and fired Grau. The director was unfazed, although he asked not to appear in the film’s credits, and shot club girlswith Fernando Hilbeck, Elisa Laguna, and Fernando Rey.
Jorge Grau receives Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina in Barcelona
He flirted with ‘exposure cinema’ in the 70s and filmed the first nude in Spanish cinema: it was in The back roomwith María José Cantudo completely naked on screen. He handled horror with ease, with iconic titles like bloody ceremony y Do not desecrate the sleep of the dead. He died at the end of 2018, leaving behind an interesting filmography and several books: essays, plays, the book Fellini from Barcelona and his memories, Confidences of a discontinued director. That title is its best definition.
RTVE Play adds two award-winning films at the San Sebastián Film Festival to its offer, A story of love and Sneaksby José Luis Borau, awarded the Golden Shell. In addition, new titles arrive: Spanish cinema with Hector, by Gracia Querejeta, Hollywood cinema with Django Unchainedby Quentin Tarantino, and classic cinema with Robin y Marian, con Sean Connery y Audrey Hepburn.
