Daniel Calparsoro

Daniel Calparsoro, a director who has made a crucial contribution to contemporary Spanish and Basque cinema, has provoked strong reactions from the critics. Reductively dismissed as works of crude violence by those lamenting a 'lost golden age' of Spanish filmmaking, Calparsoros films in fact reveal a more complex interaction with trends and traditions in both Spanish and Hollywood cinema. This book is the first full-length study of the directors work, from his early social-realist films set in the Basque Country to his later forays into the genres of the war and horror. It offers an in-depth film-by-film analysis while simultaneously exploring the directors position in the contemporary Spanish context, the tension between directors and critics and the question of national cinema in an area the Basque Country of heightened national and regional sensitivities. -- .