1989 · drama · religion · biography
The Dark Night
Directed by Carlos Saura1h 33m1989
Pantheon filmmaker Carlos Saura bounced back from a handful of failures with 1989's La Noche Oscura (The Dark Night). Juan Diego stars as San Juan de la Cruz (St. John of the Cross), the legendary 16th-century poet-prophet. Galvanized into action by the spirit of Santa Teresa de Jesus, San Juan fought to install reforms in the Carmelite Order. Like many another visionary, he was regarded as a heretic, and promptly subjected to the most appalling of tortures. Writer-director Saura manages to draw several parallels between the religious persecution of the 1700s and the political despotism of Fascist Spain.
Our read: The Dark Night (1989) reads as a heavy, measured, inventive drama · religion · biography entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook.
Heavy, measured, measured drama / religion, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, intimate, measured.
- heavy
- measured
- intense
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