A remarkable one-off from Franco-era Spain, J.A. Bardem's Death of a Cyclist is an understated but scathing examination of its times and a darkly comic thriller.
The best thing about this movie is its total reliance on character dynamics to generate tension. There are no extra subplots - cutaways to the police investigation, or (my expectation) some Postman Always Rings Twice-style plan to get rid of Rafa (Carlos Casaravilla), the snarky art critic who tries to blackmail Maria about the affair.
The titular event is a catalyst for intense self-reflection. Through Juan and Maria, the film becomes a critique of the characters'; affluent world. Juan is stuck between his memories of 'the war' (implied to be the Spanish Civil War) and his sightlessness in the present with Maria as the bridge between the two. Juan has a cushy job that he gained through his brother-in-law. Since he has achieved the good life through no effort of his own: he is in love with a woman he cannot have - and now he has killed someone, and gotten away with it.
Juan recognises the hypocrisy of his life, and seeks out to restore a sense of morality to this world. In the end, Maria cannot break away from the lifestyle and betrays him.
One of the most interesting features of Cyclist compared with most of the American noir I am familiar with, is that the characters are in no danger of being punished: the police have no leads; Maria's husband does not believe Rafa's insinuations; or, when he does, gives Maria an ultimatum that she ultimately accepts. The resolution of the Rafa subplot reveals the true depth of the characters' hypocrisy - Maria's husband knows that she is with him because of what he can give her, and can accept that in exchange for her loyalty.
A femme fatale is usually defined by independence - Maria is ultimately the servant of forces she cannot control. Her greed does her in, leading to an ironic repetition of the event that led to it. Order has been restored, of a kind - like our protagonists, the cyclist flees the scene.
Filmmaker J.A. Bardem was arrested repeatedly throughout his career (including after this movie), and it is easy to read the film as a critique of Franco's Spain, with all the signifiers of wealth and privilege hiding the trauma of the country's recent post, and the contemporary police state.
Despite the heavy cultural context, I have to say that of the noir I have reviewed this year, Death of a Cyclist might have been the most purely enjoyable. The film has a dark wit that feels universal e.g. Rafa's various veiled references to what he knows. The humour is bittersweet - even though the circle closed at the climax, the cyclist's escape at the end implies that this sequence of events will be repeated. Juan and Maria are not unique - they are symptoms of a broader moral vacuum.
The movie is built on a series of narrative and aesthetic ironies: transitions between scenes create juxtapositions of irony and suspense - a scene that ends with the threat of the couple's affair is followed by a shot of Maria's husband timed, composed and performed as though the character is reacting to this knowledge. Throughout the movie, Bardem introduces a series of false cavalry charges - transitions between scenes blend together to create ironic re-framings e.g. Juan and Maria fear being revealed will be followed by a shot of another character looking on, as though observing the previous scene - the punchline is that our anti-heroes are never in danger of being found out.
A truly great movie, Death of a Cyclist is one of the best films I have seen on the big screen this year.
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