Main Street
(Calle Mayor)
Juan Antonio Bardem / Spain / 1956 / 97 min
Related Films
Aunt Tula(La Tía Tula)Miguel PicazoA widower finds himself falling for his sister-in-law. For his intelligently staged debut feature – a film about women making decisions of whom to ...
The Cuenca Game(El Crimen de Cuenca)Pilar MiróTwo village men are falsely convicted of murdering a shepherd. Based on real events, The Cuenca Game focuses on two village men, falsely convicted of ...
Death of a Cyclist(Muerte de un Ciclista)Juan Antonio BardemAn adulterous couple hit a cyclist while driving on a deserted highway. Bardem’s most celebrated solo effort centres on the angst of an adulterous ...The Disenchantment(El Desencanto)Jaime ChavarriThe widow and children of an official poet of Franco’s regime speak out. A veritable cult classic, this documentary profiles the widow and children of ...From Pink to Yellow(Del Rosa…al Amarillo)Manuel SummersTwo love stories are told in parallel: in the first, demythologising the love of innocents, a young boy falls for an older girl and becomes increasingly ...Spanish with English subtitles
In this sobering indictment of provincial hypocrisy, a bunch of bored middle-aged friends decides to play a trick on Isabel: Juan (José Suárez), the youngest and most handsome of all them, will pretend to fall in love with her. As Isabel lives the courtship full of hopes and joy, Juan realizes too late the cruelty of the situation; and, still pushed by his buddies, he doesn’t dare tell Isabel the truth. Widely considered to be one of Bardem’s masterpieces, Main Street was eventually screened at the 1956 Venice Mostra where it won the International Critics’ Prize after near-successful attempts by censors to block its distribution. To satisfy the censors, an initial foreword – claiming the events depicted could happen anywhere – was added.