Prolific, Carlos Saura was a filmmaker of the game and the imagination, with a sophisticated aesthetic, a style that was both lyrical and documentary, centered on the fate of the most disadvantaged.

He often depicted characters from the bourgeoisie, tormented by their past, floating between reality and fantasy.

But from the death of Franco (1975) and the democratic transition that followed, this music and dance madman gradually moved on to something else: hymns of love to tango and fado, Argentine folklore and jota, a dance from his native Aragon, at the opera and, above all, at his beloved flamenco, becoming, somewhat in spite of himself, an ambassador of Spanish culture.

He was born on January 4, 1932 in Huesca (north) into a family of artists: his mother was a pianist and his brother, Antonio, became a famous painter.

As a teenager, he developed a passion for photography, then studied cinema.

In 1966, he obtained his first international recognition (Silver Bear for "La Chasse" at the Berlin Festival).

He then directed "Peppermint struck" (1967, again awarded in Berlin the following year), Carlos Saura's first collaboration (out of nine in total) with Geraldine Chaplin, who would become his muse and the mother of one of his children.

Carlos Saura and Anglo-American actress Geraldine Chaplin at the 31st Cannes International Film Festival, May 30, 1978 in Cannes © RALPH GATTI / AFP/Archives

From a difficulty - to circumvent the Francoist censorship -, he makes an asset: with forceful metaphors, ellipses and symbolic images, he attacks the pillars of the regime which are the church, the army and the family, in "Le Jardin delights" (1970) or "Anna and the wolves" (1972).

At that time, he also shot successful dramas like "La Madriguera" (1969) or "La cousine Angélique" (1974), jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

- Flamenco trilogy -

In 1975, he directed the funereal and sumptuous "Cria Cuervos", jury prize at Cannes, nominated for the César for best foreign film.

A child lives in an unbreathable atmosphere, like the dictatorship that is suffocating her country.

She resists, thanks to the phantasmagorical world she has invented.

One of the songs from the film, "Porque te vas", performed by Jeanette, became an international hit, especially in France.

Carlos Saura then revisits his favorite themes of memory and death with "Elisa, my love" (1977) or "Maman celebrates her hundred years", a cruel tale on the neuroses of post-Franco society, nominated for the Oscar 79 for best foreign film.

Carlos Saura, Spanish director of "Elisa, vida mia", poses during the 39th Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 1977 © - / AFP/Archives

In the 1980s, he followed a flamenco trilogy with "Blood Wedding", "Carmen" and "Sorcerer's Love", where the great dancer Antonio Gades burst onto the screen.

Then, during the following decade, he produced "Sevillanas", "Flamenco" and "Tango".

"When +Carmen+ was nominated for the Oscars, I met Robert Wise, the director of +West Side Story+, in Hollywood, who told me that I was inventing a new type of musical film, because it wouldn't are neither fiction nor documentaries", he said then to the site CineEspagne.

"Yes, I am a happy filmmaker. I have made the films I wanted to make all my life," he assured Télérama in 2017.

In 2002, he directed the dancer Aida Gomez in "Salomé" and, in 2010, delivered a historical adaptation with "Don Giovanni, birth of an opera".

He occasionally returns to drama with "Ay, Carmela!"

(Goya for Best Director 91), then "Goya in Bordeaux" (1999) or "The Seventh Day" (2004), taken from a bloody incident in rural Spain.

Always a photographer, Carlos Saura, several times married and father of several children, had collaborated with numerous specialized magazines and participated in numerous exhibitions.

Spanish director Carlos Saura during the photocall of "Io, Don Giovanni" at the Rome Film Festival, October 20, 2009 in Rome © Tiziana FABI / AFP/Archives

He had directed the official film of the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, "Marathon".

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