Cría Cuervos is a Spanish film written and directed by Carlos Saura in 1975, at the same time as the death of Franco and the beginning of the end of Francoism. Throughout Cría Cuervos there are many prevalent themes; such as death, imagination and women. This essay will be looking at the theme of women within Cría Cuervos which is interesting because the film seems to challenge the Francoist ideals and the values of Spanish society by providing centrality to female characters, which gives them subjectivity for roles other than those perceived by society of the time. ‘Saura’s film works to undermine the Francoist rhetoric of what a woman should be by portraying women who either function in opposition to this ideal or fail at their attempt to embody the expected roles.’ This essay will explore the different representation of various female characters within the film such as Anna, Irene, Anna’s grandmother, Rosa and Annas’s mother.
‘The Franco regime shared with the Roman Catholic Church a series of assumptions about gender roles and their allegedly 'natural ' basis in sexual biology. In this way of thinking, women were destined to a life centred on the home and the care of …show more content…
Finally, she dies bleeding on a bed. The scene where we see her pointing out to her lower abdomen in pain, along with the words she pronounces: “Everything is a lie. There’s nothing. They’ve lied to me”, clearly refers to the emptiness of the female position she was made to assume.’ In Cría Cuervos, Anna’s mother is portrayed as an absent figure, which is what the Francoist ideals on women attempted to convey. ‘The fallacy of patriarchal discourses in general when conceptualising the mother role as a position through which to exercise some agency as a
‘The Franco regime shared with the Roman Catholic Church a series of assumptions about gender roles and their allegedly 'natural ' basis in sexual biology. In this way of thinking, women were destined to a life centred on the home and the care of …show more content…
Finally, she dies bleeding on a bed. The scene where we see her pointing out to her lower abdomen in pain, along with the words she pronounces: “Everything is a lie. There’s nothing. They’ve lied to me”, clearly refers to the emptiness of the female position she was made to assume.’ In Cría Cuervos, Anna’s mother is portrayed as an absent figure, which is what the Francoist ideals on women attempted to convey. ‘The fallacy of patriarchal discourses in general when conceptualising the mother role as a position through which to exercise some agency as a