Black Humour In Global Cinema

Introduction

Spain is one of the few countries outside of America that makes a big impact on global cinema. Yet, Hispanic cinema has gained a high status everywhere and Hispanic directors are in high demand to produce films internationally ever since the death of Franco in 1975. Most of Spain’s films produced in the country are of Spanish origins such as ‘El espíritu de la Colmena’ and ‘Todo sobre mi Madre’. In this essay, one will discuss the use of black humour as social satire. One will discuss also the techniques used in films i.e. shots used, camera angles etc, which are widely used in film industry today to highlight this black humour, and will refer it with two films which studies the importance of this humour in Hispanic cinema.

Progression

Un chien andalou was a 16 minute short film directed with Salvador Dalí in 1929. The film is consisted by a series of startling images of a Freudian nature, starting with a woman 's eyeball being sliced open with a razor blade. Un chien andalou was received by the burgeoning surrealist movement at the time and continues to be shown regularly in film societies to this day. This film uses the inspiration of Freud to create this perverse humour. Our minds can think of random images that doesn’t make sense to us. The film has just done that by having a mixture of everything and anything put together psychologically. The reader can sense that this was a rushed film by putting random ideas from the script to the camera. In the film, there is random references such as the ants swarming around in the man’s hands and the slicing of the eye with the blade. We had to open all doors to the irrational and keep only those images that surprised us, without trying to explain

He uses humour and satire in this film to interrupt the narration of this story at its tragic, which describes the openness of the Franco regime. Viridiana is a satire through the selection of images such as a family portrait, a crown of thorns. He uses this social satire also as a “parallel montage that cuts between pastoral images of Viridiana leading the beggars in prayer….opposing Viridiana’s blind faith” (Martin-Marquez, 2011). She is portrayed as an innocent character trying to do a good deed; so to represent the impossibility of the innocence, Buñuel want to use this humour that demonstrate this certainty in society. He also uses black humour to mock the cruel treatment of the animals and the way the beggars treat each other, for instance irony and satire is portrayed when Don Jaime saves a bee’s life during a conversation and yet talking about his negligence with his