La Senyora

Lorca and the Buñuel of El contribute to the deep Catalan atmosphere of this study of stifled sexuality and its misshapen fruit. Teresa (Tortosa) is married off to old Nicolau (Bonnin), who wears gloves in bed, fears dirt on the Howard Hughes model, and in place of sexual congress offers her a golden thimble of semen. She masturbates with fans, he watches. He wants an heir, she rinses his thimbles down the sink, the marriage drags on until he dies, when she contemptuously makes free with his corpse. Teresa inherits everything, but the nephew she wishes to settle upon - in both senses - dies of shock diving into her pool to wash prior to consummating their passion. Hard cheese on Teresa, and she has to make do with her gardener (Merlo). Eventually the story comes full circle, with her terms as inhuman as Nicolau's. Pathological, indeed, but not remotely leering, the history certainly puts a damper on the hope centres.