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Life Size (1973)

Director: Luis García Berlanga

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From Time Out Film Guide

Piccoli, as a chic dentist, forsakes his 'liberated' but arid marriage for a new love. His job slides as he devotes himself entirely to her; they marry, but soon their bliss becomes contaminated and he tries to kill her. What makes Life Size a suitably bizarre project for Piccoli in his running battle with the bourgeoisie is that the object of his affections is a lifelike doll, complete with mucous membranes. Best are the ways in which the film tackles the problems of fantasy in an apparently permissive society, and how the doll takes on a symbolic importance beyond Piccoli's conceptions. Slightly less successful: the running gag of women as living dolls (apart from one extraordinary sequence where Piccoli's wife behaves like one in order to attract him back), and the intimations of social apocalypse at the end.

Author: CPe 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide


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