Nuevas y viejas ruralidades

Abstract

It is at least curious the fact that nowadays, in this urban society, Spanish documentaries that are focused on rurality are flourishing. This paper is an attempt to better understand this phenomenon that might have an anchoring point in the so called Nova Escola de Barcelona. It also seems to be a social but metaphysic new glance to the countryside highly related with the search of the personal identity and with the anxiety of the social trauma. Having done a general overview of the presence of rural features in Spanish fictional and non-fictional cinema, we have highlighted three films due to their influence in the present renaissance of this feature: <em>Las Hurdes. Tierra sin pan</em> (1933), <em>El espíritu de la colmena</em> (1973) and <em>El cielo gira</em> (2005). Then, we focus on some of the most significant documentaries related to this new tendency of subjective and rather symbolic gaze over the Spanish countryside.