"Jamón Jamón"; Dir:Bigas Luna, 1992

I'm currently working my way through the idiosyncratic and thematically connected films of Spanish director Bigas Luna and typically for me, out of chronological order, starting with his 1994 romantic comedy "The Tit & The Moon" which continues Lunas' obsession with women's breasts, Spanish machismo and the dynamics of sexual politics in the Spain of the 80's and 90's as metaphors for larger societal issues in a not an immediately apparent way.

Women are very much front and centre stage in both "The Tit & The Moon" and the earlier "Jamón Jamón" in a manner similar to the subjects of the films of his fellow Spanish director Pedro Almodovar and "Jamón Jamón" became the breakout hit film that established Luna as a director in a global context beside launching the careers of its two leads, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. Both films represent a shift in a type of cinema that might be guaranteed to bring in audiences at a time of dwindling cinema audiences during the late 1980's and early 90's, perhaps on the wings of films like "Betty Blue", combining lush location cinematography with complex themes and sexual scenes artfully staged and very much in the context of their plots without ever drifting into outright pornography, though it could be said that Bigas Luna often pushed this as far as was permissible for general audiences. I have to admit that "Jamón Jamón" passed me by at the time of its release though I remember it being much talked about - it just wasn't the kind of cinema that I was watching at the time - and beyond a great deal of focus on its two leads there seemed to be very little to go on, certainly any suggestion that the film featured some heated, sexually charged scenes appeared to be glossed over and left for audiences to discover for themselves.

The big surprise for me was the presence of the much-admired Italian actress Stefania Sandrelli, who I have mentioned in several previous posts, and was a spur for me to watch the film at all.

Sandrelli's role is that of the proprietress of a men's underwear factory that she manages with her wealthy industrialist husband. Their doted-on son, "José Luis" (Jordi Mollà) is indulged and wayward but hopes to inherit his parents' thriving business if he can convince his father to back a project that in reality has no hope of being a success. His prospects are further clouded by the fact that he is in a romantic relationship with the young daughter, "Sylvia" (Penelope Cruz) of "Carmen", a former prostitute and the owner of a sleazy bar/brothel frequented by truckers, and, as it happens, was once José's fathers' lover, located in the middle of the Monegros Desert in a Spanish town notable for two things, the underwear factory where Sylvia works as a seamstress and the "Conquistador" ham processing plant, and little else. Unsure of his parent's reaction to his relationship with Sylvia, who is much lower on the social ladder, José Luis discovers early on that she is pregnant with his child and determines to marry her against his mother's wishes while his father is indifferent to the relationship, perhaps for reasons that become apparent later in the plot, instead announcing to Sylvia that he will renounce his inheritance, in a rare show of courage. When his mother (Sandrelli) becomes aware of this she hatches a plan to derail the relationship once and for all by hiring "Raúl" (Javier Bardem), a ham delivery driver and aspiring bullfighter, to seduce Sylvia with the promise of money and an expensive car if he is successful after she discovers him as a model for the underwear made at her factory and is immediately impressed by his natural endowments. The plan begins to unravel as Sandrelli's "Conchita" falls hopelessly for Raúl (Bardem) herself following a torrid sexual encounter with him, as does Sylvia, who falls for his rough hewn machismo when she realises that José Luis lacks the spine to follow through on his promises. José Luis consoles himself with Sylvia's mother, Carmen, unaware that his father had also been her lover at some point but as it becomes increasingly clear that Sylvia is intent on dumping him for Bardem's "Raúl" he is driven to consider a desperate act as a result of jealousy.

José Luis gathers up enough nerve to confess to his mother that Sylvia is pregnant by him and she reconsiders her opinion of her, primarily to protect her family's honour, and convinces José Luis that a marriage must go through, but by now Sylvia has fallen in love with Bardem's Raúl and there is no going back as far as she is concerned. Matters come to a head when Conchita visits Raúl to satisfy her sexual longings and also to try and stop him from falling too far for Sylvia after she announces that she is pregnant by her son. José Luis has followed her to spy on their secret tryst which provides him with an opportunity to confront Raúl, and that ultimately results in tragic consequences for all concerned.

While it's been noted by critics that Bigas Lunas' films conceal metaphors for wider societal issues in Spain, as stated previously, it's not entirely obvious. Instead we are presented with visual and verbal puns and irony, such as the enormous bull billboard at the side of the dusty motorway where lovers meet under its enormous testicles, later in the film vandalised by an enraged José Luis and that Sylvia uses as a temporary umbrella to shelter from the rain before falling into the arms of Raúl following a violent break-up with José Luis.

Raúl is depicted as a strutting symbol of Spanish machismo, forever clutching at his most prized possession, his crotch, perhaps having little else to commend him beyond being a maker of hams and a smooth way with women which ultimately wins him the love of Sylvia (Cruz). The next film in Lunas' series is "Golden Balls", where he builds on the character established in "Jamón Jamón" and where Bardem reappears in a similar role.

I've yet to see if Bigas Luna tapped other notable European actresses in pivotal roles for his later films, a seeming trend established in "Jamón Jamón" with Stefania Sandrelli and Mathilda May in "The Tit and The Moon", as Italian and French respectively. *The striking poster for the film seen above is the work of 80's/90's British graphic designer de jour, Neville Brody.

"Jamón Jamón", DirN: Bigas Luna, 1992

Criterion Channel