There is a very particular sub-genre of fiction, which we can refer to as small-town noir or pastoral gothic, and which we often find occurring in a lot of European and American cinema in the years following the end of the Second World War, whereby filmmakers ventured out of the cities and chose to explore the trials and tribulations of those living on the edges of modernity, populating the quaint small towns that are always viewed as delightfully detached from the hustle and bustle of urban spaces, but are often revealed to have sinister secrets if we look hard enough. This is the underlying premise of Strange Voyage (Spanish: El extraño viaje), in which director Fernando Fernán Gómez sets sail for an obscure hamlet tucked away somewhere in the Spanish countryside, in which the residents go about their daily routine as if it were any other small town, with the only difference being the presence of Dona Ignacia Vidal, a sinister, shadowy dowager who presides over them from her balcony, watching their every move and instilling a sense of unease in their lives. However, when she suddenly seems to liquidate all of her possessions and disappears with her two feeble-minded siblings in tow, the town initially celebrates, before starting to grow suspicious of the rapidity at which she departed, leading them to wonder whether or not everything is quite as it seems. Delightfully odd and wonderfully offbeat in the way that we expect from this particular generation of postmodern Spanish surrealists who spent their lives chasing the legacy of Luis Buñuel and his particular vision of society, Strange Voyage is a fascinating film, particularly when we consider the circumstances surrounding its creation, both artistically and politically. Layered with meaning and filled to the brim with unforgettable images, the film is an exceptional work of early arthouse postmodernism, carefully crafted by one of Spain’s most celebrated filmmakers working at the time, who handcrafts a profoundly perverse parable about the fickle boundary between reality and fiction, and how they two can develop a symbiotic relationship that forms the basis for an outrageously funny and profoundly bleak dark comedy.

Strange Voyage is the kind of film that intentionally doesn’t inform us what it is about or in which direction it intends to head, instead offering us the most surface-level premise to allow the audience to acclimate themselves with the world in which the story takes place, but limiting how much knowledge we have other than this basic knowledge. This is a very effective method since this is not a film that benefits from being aware of its countless twists and turns, but instead, one that is best experienced as we encounter these insidious little delights scattered throughout the story. What becomes clear after some time is that Fernán Gómez was taking a raw bundle of ideas and carving them into a sharp, pointed social satire about social structure and the lengths to which some will go to fit into a particular niche, even if it means resorting to sordid, immoral actions that could cause more trouble than they are prepared to handle should their intentions come to light. This is not just mindless satire for the sake of being different, but instead a stark and unsettling depiction of life during the brutal dictatorship of Francisco Franco, a regime that benefitted only those at the very top, and ultimately caused nothing but despair and disdain amongst the rest of the population. Fernán Gómez joined the likes of Juan Antonio Bardem and Luis García Berlanga in crafting these offbeat, extremely surreal works that take place in slightly nightmarish versions of reality, where nothing quite works as it should and everything is left-of-centre, as a means to respond to the discord that was gradually being amplified by the masses. Humour is a powerful tool, and it is something that these directors reconfigured to be their weapon of rebellion. While it isn’t always clear in terms of its purpose, it doesn’t take too long for Strange Voyage to introduce its underlying themes, telling this unique story of a community gradually piecing together the fragments of a mystery that exists at the perfect intersection between sinister conspiracy and genuine miracle.

The inherent problem with satire is that, even at its most well-formed and meticulously crafted, it isn’t possible to predict how different elements will age, and whether a text will be considered a brilliant comedic time capsulate, or a hopelessly dated remnant of the past. The best that a filmmaker can hope to achieve is one that captures the spirit of a time and place, doing their best to commit the nature of a particular moment in the past, with the possibility that it will be viewed as such. Strange Voyage is certainly one of the most successful in this case – one doesn’t need to have much knowledge of Spanish history in the mid-20th century, or even any real sense of awareness of the cultural or social milieux to understand the various narrative strands of this film. This is primarily because Fernán Gómez crafts the film as a tonal piece, focusing on evoking the texture of this particular time and place, more than expending too much energy on the historical or cultural context. From its first moments, we feel like we are peering voyeuristically into the daily routine of the residents of this town, following them closely and observing their rapid lives. Then gradually, the film becomes darker as we become acquainted with the more sinister characters that loom heavily over this quaint town. The atmosphere is very important to the director, as he establishes a very particular mood, one that is simple but extremely effective, woven together from a blend of darkly comedic scenarios and truly horrifying imagery. Strange Voyage is a film in which the silences say the most – there are major elisions in between scenes, with shots occurring out of order and seemingly without any explanation, with the gaps only being gradually filled in as we progress through the story, which playfully reconfigures temporal structure and challenges conventional timeline construction to create an invigorating, unconventional narrative that challenges the viewer to look beneath the surface to understand the multitude of complex ideas lingering just out of sight, which leads to some terrific and truly enticing interactions between the audience and this steadily shifting plot structure.

As textured and detailed as his depiction of this small Spanish town may be, Fernán Gómez makes sure that the characterization of the people occupying this space is just as strong. A good satire cannot exist without well-crafted, meaningful characters that are developed with consistency and elegance, even when they are designed to be extremely unconventional. At the heart of Strange Voyage are a trio of exceptional performances, coming in the form of Tota Alba as the sinister antagonist who acts as a de facto leader of this small town, at least in terms of her financial contributions that keep it economically active, and Rafaela Aparicio and Jesús Franco as her childish siblings who gradually intend to rid themselves of her influence by proving their independence, which eventually results in a brutal accident that takes their plan a few steps too far. Every character in this film, whether central to the plot or merely part of the Greek chorus that recurs throughout the story, is essential, each one of them being developed to play some kind of role in the development of the story, occupying these archetypal roles in such a way that they are challenging and unconventional, and ultimately form a vibrant tapestry of perspectives from which the director can draw inspiration. The main performances are initially kept quite ambigious, with Alba being portrayed as some maniacal, evil entity at first, but gradually being revealed to be just as impressionable and vulnerable as the people below who fear her, and where the true villains are the seemingly innocent companions who portray themselves as her victims, and the dashing village lothario whose romance with a young local dancer stirs quite a scandal, especially when he refuses her advances due to familial commitments, which turn out to be far from true once the film reveals its actual intentions. The performances throughout Strange Voyage are fascinating – broad and eccentric, every one of these actors plays to the rafters, yet they are so extraordinarily compelling to watch on screen, and Fernán Gómez takes advantage of their various eccentricities as he weaves this tremendously entertaining yarn that is as bitingly funny as it is oddly compassionate to these people and what they represent.

Making sense of a film like Strange Voyage is far from an easy task, and one can even call into question whether or not it is entirely possible, or if it is simply a fool’s errand to attempt to assert logic onto something so explicitly designed as being otherworldly in its underlying intentions – a disquieting, often quite unsettling chamber drama combined with a sinister dark comedy about a community experience a shift after their self-styled governess suddenly disappears, and where their initial celebration proves to be premature, since it conceals something much darker. Crafted as an ensemble piece that draws on a very particular sense of community, and driven by a distinct sensibility that is entirely representative of this particular era in Spanish cinema, where surrealism was developing into a viable form of artistic expression, the film is a brilliant and challenging work of social and cultural commentary that remains as invigorating and unconventional today as it was sixty years ago when audiences were first enticed to step into Fernán Gómez’s bizarre and unsettling version of reality. It has aged remarkably well, and there is something truly compelling about a film that can be so incredibly nuanced while capturing such unwieldy, daring subject matter that would be impossible to comprehend in quite the same way. Brilliantly engaging and truly poetic in both form and vision and definitive of a very particular moment in Spanish artistic and cultural history, Strange Voyage is a masterpiece of surreal cinema, a film that has covertly influenced many that have emerged in the aftermath, even if only in spirit. There has never been a more appropriate time to revisit the peculiar career of Fernán Gómez and his exceptional body of work, of which this film is possibly the crowning achievement and one that is as compelling by contemporary standards as it is deeply unconventional and unquestionably a work of sheer ingenuity, both in terms of style and substance, the two working in tandem to create this incredible work of sheer artistic subversion.