La criatura

The creature is a 1977 drama film, directed by Eloy de la Iglesia. The plot follows a respectable bourgeois housewife who chooses the love for her black German Shepherd over her relationship with her husband. La criatura is notable, like Walerian Borowczyk's La Bête (1975) and Nagisa Oshima's Max, Mon Amour (1986), for openly involving zoophilia, then a novelty in Spanish Cinema. Shot in 1977, the film employs bestiality as a symbol of Spain's political landscape. It makes references to the massacre of Atocha and to political right wing groups that after the death of Francisco Franco, tried to maintain the dictator's political ideals. Plot Marcos and Cristina are a well to do couple who had have been married for several years. Their relationship has been strained, in part because they have not been able to have children. They are overjoyed when Cristina unexpectedly gets pregnant. Close to give birth, Cristina's hopes are shattered when stopping at a gas station she is attacked by a black German Shepherd. The shock of the attack makes Cristina give birth prematurely to a stillborn son. To help his wife forget the tragedy, Marcos takes Cristina to the same sea side resort where they had spent their honeymoon. Cristina recovers her strength and becomes attach to a stray dog that befriends her at the beach. The dog is also a black German Shepherd, the same breed as the one that caused her misfortune. Frightened at first, she soon began to pet the dog that proves to be charming, tame and very fond of her. Against her husband's protestations, Cristina takes the dog back home to the city. Marcos, a successful presenter of a TV variety show, is a conservative Catholic sympathetic to right wing politics. He remains faithful to his wife, dismissing the romantic advances of Vicky, the cohost of his TV program. While her husband is occupied at work, Cristina finds in her dog an outlet to the love she could not give to the child she lost. She calls her dog Bruno. The name she and her husband had previously chosen for their unborn son.