“A young Spaniard outside of every system, of every clique, of every influence, records on 16mm (since cinema for him cannot be just a profession) the quiet heartbreaking delusions that express, better than if he had prepared indictments, the state of mind of a generation for whom poetry today is the only refuge and the only feasible fight...”

– Jean-André Fieschi, Cahiers du Cinéma (1967)

Adolpho Arrietta grew up in Spain during the Franco regime, where his childhood interests in drawing and painting soon turned to amateur filmmaking. He bought a 16mm camera in a flea market and began making diary films. He later both organized screenings and attended Ciné-Clubs (clandestine activities under the Franco regime), where he saw films of Cocteau, Vigo, Genet, and others.

His first three films, made while Arrietta was in his twenties, are presented together in this DVD edition entitled “The Angel Trilogy,” with an accompanying booklet that provides incisive background about the filmmaker and these films – EL CRIMEN DE LA PIRINDOLA (1965), LA IMITACION DEL ANGEL (1966), and JOUET CRIMINEL (1969). Filmed with a grainy black-and-white texture, they star youthful Javier Grandès, Arrietta’s alter-ego. Each film alternates between the terrestrial world and an oneiric vision (replete with the main protagonist wearing angel’s wings); he inhabits a world of waking dreams.

The first two films, EL CRIMEN DE LA PIRINDOLA and LA IMITACION DEL ANGEL take place on the streets and in Madrid’s apartment buildings. At the end of the latter film, the protagonist departs for Paris by train, escaping from the oppression of Franco’s Spain to the City of Light (just as the filmmaker did in real life).

Once in France, Arrietta (and Grandès) encountered Cocteau’s favorite protagonist-hero, Jean Marais, who stars in JOUET CRIMINEL along with Florence Delay (the star of Bresson’s LE PROCÈS DE JEANNE D’ARC, 1962). Lotte Eisner, the esteemed critic, historian, and grande dame of the Cinémathéque Française wrote about JOUET CRIMINEL that “this film was made with the stuff of dreams.”