THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE (1972; w/d Vicente Aranda)

Bride + groom’s white car arrives at hotel (psychic information arising into many-chambered consciousness), she wanting to "go on driving at 90mph" (aka libido, he censorious rationality putting brakes on her) + noticing blonde in red car outside (title figure also à la similarly aggrieved la Llorona; intuition of empowered self similarly in transit), suddenly assaulted in room (private chamber à la uterus) by stockingfaced husband-lookalike (masculine img sheathed inside own fem) who shrouds her face in veil (like him, as during all such violations) before ravaging her (Franco-era dictator blinding citizens – as themselves – to atrocities), real hubby emerging from elevator (not-closet, her anticipation of events fwd-thinking [as -moving] intuitive sense suggesting also film’s covert relation to real life) to find her clutching veil (intact) + asking to leave (hallucination Shining-like divination of "his" actual earlier escapades).

Pull up now to his family estate (historic/archetypal "descent" of pathology), where chimes announce child-of-groundsman (earthy spirit/Earth Spirit), 12/14-yr-old (according to dad/her: precociousness à la Susan’s intuition) Carol (in red; lookalike for car-phantom, latter transpersonal essence [car = mobility] attending bride), who gives her rose (trad "pricking" sexuality) before Susan catches veil on cannon (subtle: "Is it torn?/No") on way to his boyhood room (he still stuck in juvenile ideas of wmn + pwr), where he reiterates hotel-fantasy (she either clairvoyant, or this another paranoid hallucination) + she acquiesces (as submissive people before dictator); next day, after Carol’s school (marriage 2B Susan’s political education), she + Sue arrange flowers (while groundsman + husband hunt + [graphically] shoot fox: creative anima vs destructive animus) + discuss wmn’s family portraits (in basement: repressed femininity in husband/society), proud hubby w/ kill (cf Beauty + the Beast’s remorse, this no fairytale transcendence) hauling bride off to bedroom in response to chiding (sex/rape tool of oppression), she scattering Carol’s roses behind (girl’s vision of virginity-loss to come [cf Vadim Blood + Roses]) for her to pick up (trying to preserve/reclaim innocence).

As Susan looks for husband in woods (seeing Woman 1st: harbinger of hubby’s attacks each time), arms reach from above (à la serpents) + lift her by her hair + drop her (domination born i/t Garden), getting him shut down in tub later (home her domain), he replaying her forest hide+seek (emerging into hallway – always entering scene wife’s invasion paranoia) up to aviary (nervous, limbic mind), where she locks self in (identifying w/ caged birds) + ties key to pigeon she frees (cage à la chastity belt), so he breaks in + paws her (both acting like animals, she again in submissive bedroompose) till she points out Carol watching (like drone for vengeful spirit); Susan sketches Carol (invoking own pwr by bringing buried img of wmn to surface/present) + both check out cellar portrait (delving political history) of Mircala Karnstein, whose missing face (i.d.’d instead by bloody knife + inverted rings: simultaneous phallus + yonis) filled in by mugging Carol (reincarnation-2B) till husband breaks up party (penetrating fem enclave again), she having killed husband before even changing names (wmn/people’s immortal independent spirit) + interred w/ dagger in hand (potency preserved in archetypal memory); shows her MK’s headstone (buried, again, under foliage), remarking "tomb must’ve been violated dozens of times" (nudge nudge) + proceeding to do so himself (removing + breaking bone/phallus Regime’s casual sadism), freaking her out ("I’m decaying" – old self making way for new).

After shutting hubby down again (practicing new persona), room fills w/ light (independence illuminating + vice versa) + Woman enters (self-2B), filling mirror w/ white (primer for New Self) as she spreads cape + gives Susan dagger (conferring phallic pwr) before biting neck ("Let’s seal our pact w/ a kiss" You May Now Kiss the Bride; violence of this relationship as well), her scream awakening her (dream-figure arising out of own psyche), now really shunning hubby’s touch (w/drawing from Other/consciousness as narcotic, seductive unconsciousness increases influence); wmn returns that night (again lighting room: alternative light o/t imagination) + rouses Susan (husband sleeping: his paranoid dream) to direct her to knife in clock (time their weapon) to castrate husband w/ (he succumbing to her emergent pwr: his unconscious will, as well), he waking (intact) to find her standing at his side (realization of her [semi-]awakened consc’ss) + striking back when she lashes out at him (putting down sedition).

Doctor sedates her + attributes behavior to "childhood ghosts/myths" (archetype of, not regressive masculinity [mythical "masculine" agency in past], but fem pwr submerged under socialization, She Spectral Mother – psychological construct bridging young woman to mature self-img), both insisting on her childishness (nascent character o/t Revolution), Susan surprising him by showing where he hid knife (not in same spot: location of pwr shifting under his nose); while burying dagger at seashore (from clock/temporal realm to sea/eternal; hypnagogic borderline btwn Un/conscious), he sees (artificial: nod to Meshes o/t Afternoon opening + transition btwn immaterial + real) hand + snorkel protruding from sand (buried figure in own unconsc) he uncovers to find nude woman (newborn; evolutionary point of origin regeneration of wmnkind, unquestioned oddity his fantasy again [of own supersession]) he brings home (honking for servants as w/ Susan-arrival: film/time re-starting, too).

Susan brings Carmila clothes (putting modern dress on archetype) + notices inverted rings (as on portrait: fantasy/art intruding on reality; likes to feel something when clenching fingers: filling in for phantom dagger-phallus), husband + wife lighting dinner candles (as religious rite, C entering their marriage) as C joins them (framed btwn: middleground btwn fe/male – object of desire for each) announced by chimes (à la Carol, in 1st of many parallels) + explains how she got buried (lost track of time scuba diving; time-less in psychological deeps à la mermaid/She-Creature et al) till discovered by Him (on "usually deserted part of beach" – unexplored fem side); wife draws her (from Carol to dream-img to Carmila: artistically transferring rebellious spirit into mature img) while He blathers complacently (finally observing their rapport à la Susan studying his solicitousness over dinner) till jealously taking wife to bed (reiterating Carol/roses: restarted film accumulating reiterations), waking i/t night (into drm) to see wmn walking off together (framed in window: contained, as in mind, they unified img of wmn sundered in past [mother-img divided on pubertal realization o/t Sexual Mother], whose coming back togr constitutes threat [edging him out: dualistic foundation of patriarchy, wmn dependent on men for heavy lifting + men on wmn to carry feeling-selves]).

Next day Susan’s adopted Carmila’s habiliments (completing transference from girl to wmn to self) + finds buried dagger on beach (unearthing own symbolic pwr, scene replay of husband’s bone-digging driven home when she clutches at sand, as earlier dirt) which she grips blade-first (sexualizing her hand – initiation of physical revolutionary), he locking knife in bureau back home (pocketing key à la Sue in aviary, she allied now w/ phallus); that night, Doc follows (healing agent reporting on what ego cannot witness by self) her + Carmila’s assignation in ruined chapel (decayed [+ decadent] spiritual unity), where C goads her (dialog – largely from Sheridan le Fanu source novel bearing her name – reminiscent of rhetoric of Communist orator/revoutionary on whom character probably modeled, Dolores Ibarruri) then opens her wound (as Sue had done her hand earlier) to drink (gaining pwr from her injury, as Party did from people’s suffering), lowering her dress (Sue’s face obscured by hair – blinding, again [or disguising body double?]) to bite neck (Doc leaving rather'n intervening: function only to witness + report, action in spiritual heart of labyrinth core img he taking away – communion + symbiotic relationship btwn compromised imgs of femininity as result of sadistic treatment frommen).

Second stakeout next night (Doc + Husband body + mind in league against eternal/transpersonal soul) as Susan (for Spain; Carmila Communism) pries open bureau w/ screwdriver (phallic violation of uterine space – by wmn; cf husband’s increasingly neutered role [as observer; dialog w/ Doc in kitchen] post-"castration") + hacks doc to death (as Carmila blinds him à la Sue’s veiling; eliminating the documentary consciousness) then chases husband (goaded by Carm [as orator Ibarruri, also reveased as teacher dictating to Carol’s class, where girl given dagger]: voice in head, Sue only direct victim of her violence) to car/womb (their knife + rock piercing roof + windshield his further feminization) he drives away; next victim groundsman – throat slashed, shot in head + genitals (violence to men’s mind + body by phallusized wmn) – on discovering foxtrapped Carm ("vixen") – found by husband (touching jagged dagger to bloody vagina-dentata trap crystalizing entire movie) on way to chapel where Carm’s coffin sits (her "spiritual" association), which he opens to find 2 wmn (nude embrace the return o/t divided self to fetal wholeness) before shutting + blasting full of holes (closeup on smoking barrel as after Susan shot gdsmn: he/consciousness back in possession o/t phallus as mind eliminates ambiguity on path to wakefulness).

Carol appears from behind pillar (phallus: seed of new life released into chapel-uterus; fem pwr also coming out from shadow o/t male) + shows him inverted rings (inwd value) + neck-bites (revealed by his gun barrel: intimations of molestation, punctures already-lost virginity [creative, reproductive pwr unleashed]), warning "They’ll come back. They cannot die" (immortal spirit of dissent, again, echo of his Mircala comment "they never managed to take the dagger away from her hand") + kneeling/bowing (hair over head à la Susan’s veiling; obscuring face in preparation for next incarnation) so he can shoot her (mind reducing elements to core imgs/i.d.); opens coffin + takes knife to Carm’s bloody breast (mastectomy foretelling dir’s next Change of Sex: eliminating not only fems but femininity [in self]) as frame freezes + blurs (1st camera tricks in film built on crude jump cuts: mind itself locking up + immolating on shocking img - as restatement of dagger/trap, vengeful violence [cf fellow Spaniard Buñuel’s similar visual affront in opening Chien Andalou] against non-nurturing object of desire man’s apocalyptic last act).

Cut (as tho having violated self awake) to HOME NEWS (arresting return to journalistic reality [following "unheimlich" (un-home-ly)/uncanny nightmare, mind telegraphing upshot of dream): MAN CUTS OUT HEARTS OF 3 WMN (patriarchy/regime eviscerating soul/center of its own regenerative power).