Death of a Cyclist
(Muerte de un Ciclista)
Juan Antonio Bardem / Spain / 1955 / 84 min
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An adulterous couple hit a cyclist while driving on a deserted highway. Bardem’s most celebrated solo effort centres on the angst of an adulterous couple who hit a cyclist while driving on a deserted highway and leave him to die. The love story intertwines with a critique of a society in which the rich and the poor only cross paths tragically on the curve of a highway or at high-society women’s charity games. Bardem brought a new social and political consciousness to Spanish cinema. Death of a cyclist, who, despite his willingness to circumvent the censorship under Franco, was rated as “seriously dangerous,” premiered out of competition at Cannes, where he received the International Critics’ Festival but censorship forced him to punish the adulterous woman in a melodramatic ending.