Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here, to talk about one of my absolute favorite uses of popular music in film.
It's from Carlos Saura's Cría Cuervos, an underseen but beautiful film about three orphaned sisters being raised by their aunt in the twilight years of Franco's Spain. The whole film is seen from the (often distorted) perspective of the sensitive 8-year-old Ana, played by Spirit of the Beehive's precocious Ana Torrent, as she reckons with the loss of her adultering Fascist father and her sick, emotionally fragile mother, whose ghost is played by Geraldine Chaplin.
As she retreats into her inner world of memory and fantasy, away from the mundane realities of school and her strait-laced aunt, Ana has one major ally: the song "Porque Te Vas" ("Because You're Leaving") recorded by the British-Spanish musician Jeanette in 1974. It's a surprisingly downbeat pop song, but still fairly generic, and that suits Saura's purposes perfectly. After all, a song doesn't need to be perfect to be the cultural centerpiece of a small child's world.
For Ana, "Porque Te Vas" is special. It speaks to her. It's not profound, but it boasts a catchy beat and unapologetically emotive lyrics, including a refrain that roughly translates to, "All the promises of my love will go with you...", and that's more than enough. Cría Cuervos is partially about how kids can latch onto otherwise insignificant things—be they jokes, anecdotes, photographs, or throwaway pop tunes—and pour so much into them that they become powerful and poignant. "Porque Te Vas" is the premiere example.
Even though it only plays for a few short minutes in the middle of the film, and twice more at the end, it feels like the song is diffused across all of Cría Cuervos's running time because it's so strongly identified with Ana's mindset. It lets her bond with her similarly adrift sisters, as they all dance, both alone and in alternating couples, while the record player drones on. It also lets her rebel against her well-meaning but ignorant aunt, who asks her to turn it down and could clearly never understand the song's secret beauty.
As sympathetic as she tries to be, Aunt Paulina belongs to the adult world and "Porque Te Vas," like Ana's desires and repressed trauma, is beyond her ken. Throughout the film, Ana's younger sister behaves like a typically needy, hyperactive child, and her older sister gropes her way toward maturity, but Ana stays quiet and stone-faced, staring out at the world with those soulful brown eyes. She's far from adulthood but has no solace in childish joy or innocence, and the song is emblematic of her alienation; it's an external analogue to her deep interior sadness.
If Cría Cuervos had never been made, "Porque Te Vas" would probably have remained in relative obscurity, another forgettable piece of cultural detritus. But through his sensitive, humane filmmaking, Saura gave it a second life. By making it a stand-in for all the little secrets tucked away in a depressed 8-year-old's mind, he imbued it with immense emotional power. As Saura uses it, it's a fundamental ingredient in the film's startling blend of magical realism and allegorical tragedy—and he gets all the beauty he can out of Jeanette's plaintive voice and Ana Torrent's inmitable eyes.
