Berlanga of Spain

In his centenary year, Luis García Berlanga is receiving a renewed burst of attention at home. Why isn't he better known outside of Spain, asks Thomas Graham.

There's some debate over how it happened. It might have been after the screening of The Executioner, which satirised capital punishment in Spain, at the Venice Film Festival in September 1963 – or it might have been after Welcome, Mr Marshall! (1953) lampooned Spanish hopes for a slice of the US money destined to rebuild Europe after World War Two. 

In any case, one of the ministers of Spain's then dictatorship reported the latest irritation from the director Luis García Berlanga with the words: "Of course, Berlanga is a communist." To which the dictator Francisco Franco replied, "No, he's something worse: he's a bad Spaniard."

This little anecdote delighted no one more than Berlanga himself. For the duration of the dictatorship, the director made films that were out of step with Spain's cultural mores and reverence for family, church and nation. Franco was right: Berlanga wasn't a communist. 

If anything, he was an anarchist. But even that probably involved too much imposed discipline for someone who has a biography entitled, approximately: Welcome Mister Screw-Up: Chaotic Memories.  READ MORE