El hombre de los ojos y la construcción en espiral: Bigas Luna y su "Angustia"

Abstract

Summary: This article examines in detail one of the least iconic and, probably, lesser-known films – Anguish (1986) – from the most international Catalan director: Bigas Luna. As its title indicates, and contrary to his best-noted productions, it is a film which does not contain elements of an erotic or sensuous sort, but is constructed from a typically American genre – the thriller –. The movie is articulated around an adult dependent on his sinister mother, who drives him hypnotically towards extracting his victims’ eyes in a story which expands into other narrative reflections. Even though it consists of winks to classical artistic references (Hoffman, Man Ray, Velázquez, Wiene), it ends up working as a tribute to the filmography of English master Alfred Hitchcock, and it constitutes a new disquisition on the complexities of the behavior of the specular-turned gaze. [Keywords: Bigas Luna; Anguish; thriller; son; mother; gaze; eye]