EARLY YEARS: LA VIDA EN UN HILO

By Elena Anele (*)

LA VIDA EN UN HILO is 1945 film directed and written by Edgar Neville and which main stars are Conchita Montes, Rafael Durán and Guillermo Marín.

While travelling by train to Madrid, Mercedes, a recent widower who lived an unhappy life with her dull husband Ramón, meets a mysterious woman who turns up to be a psychic. She makes Mercedes see that there was a time when her life could have changed if she had followed another way. She shows her what her alternative life would have been after meeting Miguel Ángel, a funny interesting sculptor totally different from Ramón.

This movie is more a comedy than a fantastic one but it is surprising the fact that the whole story is introduced by such a fantasy character as the psychic is. This was totally new for an audience that was used to another kind of cinema, to a kind of comedy and love story based on the adventures of brave bullfighters and flamenco female singers or dancers.

The whole story is Neville’s reflection on the topic of fate and chance as two elements to be taken into account while making everyday decisions. All things happening to Mercedes are not just random but destiny paths.

The pace may seem to be a little slow for today’s audiences but if you are interested in our early years treasure findings you should give it a try.

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Elena Anele is the woman in charge of SPANISHFEAR.COM, Horror Rises from Spain  and Un Fan de Paul Naschy . A literature and cinema researcher, finishing her postgraduate studies with a thesis about the mystic filmmaker José Val del Omar. She has published in different media and books as Fangoria or Hidden Horror. She has also been in charge of several translations including Javier Trujillo’s complete works, La Mano Film Fest, The Man who Saw Frankenstein Cry and many more.