![]() The proverb is believed to have been started by Álvaro de Luna, Duke of Trujillo, in the 15th century. The title itself comes from an old Spanish proverb: Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos (Raise ravens, and they’ll take out your eyes). The chicken feet are, in fact, an allusion to the film’s title, which translates to Raise Ravens. If you look carefully at the bottom of the fridge, you will note a plate of raw chicken feet. This she takes to the kitchen, washing it and carefully putting it away, Ana proceeds to the refrigerator to fetch lettuce for her pet guinea pig. Upon confirming that he is dead, Ana scans the room until she locates a mostly empty glass of milk. Note the bathing costumes, which are topless-quintessentially European, no? These photos are interesting in that some are clearly real family snapshots of Torrent, since she is much younger in them than the character she is playing, which means they must’ve been on loan to Saura from Torrent’s parents. The first shots in Cría cuervos are of pages from a family album, beginning first with images of Ana (Ana Torrent), the middle daughter of three and the main protagonist of the film, who is looking through the album in question. Our story takes place in Madrid, Spain, modern times (mid-1970s, when the film was made). With that in mind, we begin our analysis of the film. There is little question that Torrent was ideal for this role. Finally, both films artfully extract the deep tenderness of the little girl’s strikingly large peepers. With her debut film, Torrent had already become a mascot for anti-Francoist sentiment, and Saura merely extended that concept. For another, both films are really political allegories masked as family dramas, and both are ultimately critical of the Franco regime, so viewers who saw The Spirit of the Beehive would’ve already had those associations in their minds when they first saw Cría cuervos. For one thing, Torrent would spend much of her time in both films interacting with the young costars who play her siblings. (Note: her third film would be another Saura project, Elisa, vida mía, though this time in a supporting role.)Īt any rate, it is easy to understand why Saura was so impressed with little Ana, and why he wanted her for his movie. Whatever the case, Saura won the day and Ana Torrent performed in the second of what would become a lifetime’s worth of movies and television episodes thereafter. With that kind of clout, it was apparently an offer Mr. Talk about persuasion! At that point Saura was internationally famous, having ten full-length feature films to his credit, including what was his most significant one up to that date, Peppermint Frappé. Saura created the film as a vehicle specifically for Ana Torrent, and he informed the girl’s father that if Ana couldn’t be in his film, it simply would not be made at all. As it so happened, noted Spanish director Carlos Saura had seen the earlier movie and decided he had to have her for his next project, Cría cuervos. Her father, who was bothered by the turmoil wrought in Ana’s life by the process of filming as well as its aftermath, forbade her to appear in another film. Despite being wildly popular in her debut film, The Spirit of the Beehive, Ana Torrent was never meant to act again. ![]()
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