In the framework of the thirteenth edition of Valencia Negra, The Filmoteca and the PR Festival four fundamental works of the prison genre. It is a cinema lined in the shadow, where the cell window is the only lung and the outside world becomes a chimera. A chimera? In life imprisonment (1994) An old one unable to assume external reality is committed suicide after obtaining probation. That penitentiary system that, supposedly, you rehabilitate has been questioned by cinema, Because as I shout I am a fugitive (1932), The law does not always coincide with justice, nor condemns her with the crime committed. Both this precode film and a death sentence has escaped (1956) and evasion (1960), They told real stories and were advised on the set by their protagonists. But Mervyn Leroy's hardness, Robert Bresson's mysticism and the absence of ellipsis in the direction of Jacques Becker elevated them to the status of great masterpieces. But if there is an essential achievement that Frank Darabont shares with these three filmmakers it is their ability to transform that leading time that is lived in jail into pure emotion.
Daniel Gasco, Cycle Commissioner
15.05.25 THURSDAY / 20.00 H presents Dani Gascó, cinema critic.
23.05.25 FRIDAY / 18.00 h
I am a fugitive
I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang
MERVYN LEROY. USA. 1932. VOS SPANISH. B/N. 87′. Digital HD.
Int. Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Noel Francis, Preston Foster, Allen Jenkins.
Després de tornar de la Primera Guerra Mundial, James Allen tracta de refer la seua vida, però no aconseguix adaptar-se de nou a un treball que considera monòton i vulgar. Encara que intenta progressar, les circumstàncies el porten a un alberg per a pobres, aturats i excombatents sense treball. Un dia es veu implicat en un atracament, i, encara que no ha tingut res a veure amb el delicte, és arrestat i condemnat a deu anys de treballs forçats. Les condicions en la presó són tan brutals, que Allen planeja la seua fugida.
