of the many afi award la spagnola be nominate for ( do not blame the institute while it can not be easy come up with candidate although alice ansara and who play lucia and do deserve her nomination for best actress while she even deserve to win and which she do not ) and the most puzzling be for original screenplay . this be an original screenplay . there isn not a novel or comic book lurking in the background to excuse the arbitrary plot development and or to explain the fact that someone take an interest in this material in the first place . oh dear . this be a miserable and squalid movie about miserable squalid character even the minor character and even those who only get one scene and even those who only get one scene and do not even talk and the story be one damn miserable squalid thing after another . the way it end be reveal . ( don not worry represent i would not give anything away . ) we just sort of fade out and a we watch what look like the beginning of a resolution . all very honest not to suggest that the tension can be resolve in a single and melodramatic confrontation and to suggest that the process might well take year and but the thing be and this only look like even the beginning of the end because we fade out . we could have fade out at any other point and the result would have be the same . unrelated thing happen in sequence and like the tick of a metronome and with about a much purpose or genuine sense of rhythm . and we sense and despite what the fade out seem to be try to imply and that the metronome will continue to tick on at the same rate until everyone ultimately die . ( it would not be before time when they do . ) tiny scene have be add for no reason other than to make the film all the more vile and mean spirit . lucia ( the daughter ) be an english or italian or spanish interpreter for the local doctor . there no doubt she exploit dreadfully . at first the doctor see no reason to pay her at all while after a while and he offer a token payment of a few shilling a week . ( adjust for inflation this still isn not much . ) the doctor come across a not a bad man and but a bit clueless and insensitive when he learn that a patient speak what appear to be some slavic tongue and he ask lucia to try talk to him in italian and but slowly . ( spoiler in this paragraph i suppose . ) then and one day and the doctor ask the fourteen year old lucia to stay behind for a bit and get her to sit on his knee . obviously he come on to her . he start talk about how much she remind him of his wife . you mean the one who hang herself on the jacaranda . ask lucia . this scene last just second . it have no repercussion . it sole purpose be to let u know that the doctor and who have no bearing on the main story in any event and be a lecherous old toad with a taste for barely pubescent girl and who drive his wife to suicide . do it even occur to the writer or the director that the film might have actually be rich if they would stop lay on the misanthropic spite with a trowel and for just a moment . if the doctor exploitation of lucia have be the unquestioning prejudice of a basically good man . evidently not . the second most puzzling nomination and by the way and be for the cinematography . the cinematography make me suspicious . imagine a fantasy movie that set in a mediaevel european wood but be in fact shot and by an admittedly skilled cameraman and in a municipal park there nothing in particular to give the game away and but you can sense that most of the creative effort have go towards hide something . the shot in la spagnola be all very nicely focused and lit and framed and but they do not inspire confidence .