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Ten years after making his mark on Spanish cinema with The Spirit of the Beehive, Victor Erice returned to filmmaking with this adaptation of a novella by Adelaida Garcia Morales, which deepens the director’s fascination with childhood, fantasy, and the legacy of his country’s civil war.

El Sur has the voice of Estrella (Maria Massip) tell us the story of her childhood, in particular her relationship with her father Agustin (Omero Antonutti) who disappeared from her life when she was 15. We spend most of the film in the late 1950's when Estrella is 8 though (and played by Sonsoles Aranguren). At this time she adores her father. He's an unusual man who practises divination, but, having grown up with this strange behaviour all her life, Estrella sees him as completely normal. As the flashbacks move forward we see Agustin grow more distant and haunted by the love of a former partner, but Estrella doesn't understand what's happening to him or how much he needs help. Only when she becomes a teenager (and played by Iciar Bollain) does she seem to guess what went wrong and realise that even though he showed great love to her, he was never open or honest, so she never got to actually know him as a person or help him with his problems, to create a true bond between them.

Director: Victor Erice
Cast: Omero Antonutti, Sonsoles Aranguren, Iciar Bollain
Country: Spain, France
Genre: Drama, Romance

El sur (1983) BFI
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BD25 | 1080p AVC | 01:34:54 | 21.5 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Espanol
Subtitles: English

Extras:
• Haunted Memory: The Cinema of Victor Erice (Adrian Martin, Cristina, Alvarez Lopez, 2016, 13 mins): a video essay celebrating the great Spanish director
• Victor Erice interviewed by Geoff Andrew (2003, 83 mins, audio only)
• Theatrical re-release trailer

El sur (1983) Criterion Collection
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BD50, DVD9 | 1080p AVC, NTSC | 01:34:43 | 45.1 Gb + 7.45 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Espanol
Subtitles: English

Extras:
• Interview from 2003 with director Victor Erice (21:22)
• New program on the making of the film, featuring interviews from 2012 with actors Omero Antonutti, Sonsoles Aranguren, and Iciar Bollain; cinematographer Jose Luis Alcaine; and camera operator Alfredo Mayo (24:29)
• Hour-long episode of Que grande es el cine! from 1996, featuring film critics Miguel Marias, Miguel Rubio, and Juan Cobos discussing El Sur (1:01:26)

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