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A internet he trobat, per sorpresa meva, aquesta crítica literària que, suposo, m'afecta directament. Ara tinc un problema: no sé anglès.

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FOCUS ON CATALAN LITERATURE

Anna K.

MARTÍ ROSSELLÓ

Original title: Anna K.

Country of Origin: Spain

Publishing House: Quaderns Crema

Film Rights: Quaderns

Crema/Acantilado

Genre: Drama

First Published: 2000

Number of Pages: 260

Martí Rosselló Lloveras is a poetry writer (Inventari parcial

d’excuses per viure, 2001) and collaborates with the El Punt

journal.Parelles de tres is his first novel and Anna K, his last

one, published by Quaderns Crema (2000).

SYNOPSIS

Following the death of his wife Sara, Toni shares his home

with his wife’s first son, Sergi, Sergi’s son, Guillem (nicknamed

Mamut) and his triplets, Teresa, Dora and Anna. Sergi has

recently separated from this wife and decides to move in with

his mother’s widower. Together they form a family and look

after one another until the fateful day when Guillem

disappears. Nothing will ever be the same again for Sergi. He

breaks off his relationship with Toni and devises a plan to

make the triplets confess their crime. He finally achieves this

by having sex with one of them and turning them against one

another. They tell him they were sick of Guillem’s pranks and

dumped him in a container. Sergi plots his revenge: he kidnaps

the triplets and has sex with them until one becomes pregnant

and gives him a new Guillem. While Toni goes insane in his

empty home, Anna becomes pregnant and has a baby girl,

Anna K. Now that Sergi has what he wants, he kills the three

sisters and buries them in the garden. Safeguarded by her

father, Anna K. grows up to become the centre of attention

thanks to the power of her enormous eyes. Clara, her father’s

new girlfriend, takes on the role of mother. When her father

dies, Anna K. moves in with Clara. Sergi had written a letter to
Toni confessing his plot, and after years of perseverance, Toni
finds Sergi and Anna K. at last. He visits them and poisons his
ex-lover. However, he mistakenly drinks from the same glass
and dies alongside Sergi. Anna K. overcomes the trauma of her
father’s death thanks to the overwrought care of Clara, who
finally confesses that she was with Sergi only to be near her.
During the confession, Anna K. discovers that Clara is a
transsexual. The confusion caused by being in love with her is
cleared up but she nonetheless decides to leave the flat. She
moves in with three other girls. There, she has sex for the first
time with one of the three, Laura, to avoid hearing the other
two having sex with their own partners. In the end, Laura also
finds a boyfriend, leading Anna K. to marry an old suitor. Her
friends’ boyfriends lose interest in them because they only
went out with them to be near Anna K. Anna K.’s marriage is a
disaster. When the couple separate, Anna finds a job in a
furniture shop. She is part of the display and must use all the
furniture there. A man falls in love with her and goes to see
her every day. He turns out to be Guillem (Mamut), who did
not die years back, but survived and gained wealth through
unlawful means. Anna K. wants to meet him but Guillem
avoids all contact. She finally corners him and talks to him.
Guillem dies suddenly of a heart attack. Anna K. hires a private
detective and discovers Guillem’s story. She realises that she
will have access to Guillem’s fortune if she has his child. Anna
K. becomes pregnant inseminating Guillem’s sperm and gives
birth to twins, Anna and Guillem. She moves into her father’s
old home, where she is forced to bribe a number of judges for
them to overlook the fact that she has found the bodies of
three women while renovating the house. Anna K. hires Fina to
look after her children, with whom she has a distant
relationship. Anna K. has a lover named Ernesto. When Mireia,
his wife, finds out, she suggests they do a threesome. Ernesto
dies while they are having the threesome. Mireia and her
daughter move in with Anna K. Mireia and Anna K. start a
relationship and another family is formed. They live together
and even Guillem appears to be calmer. They find out it is
because he is having an affair with Mireia’s daughter, Alba.
When they grow up, Guillem and Alba marry and have
children. Fina and Mireia die. Anna K. is alone again, although
she shares her home with Helena, Fina’s assistant. She goes to
the graveyard every day. There she meets Pep, a young man
who dies prematurely from a stupid illness. Anna K. realises
she is tired of living and commits suicide by drinking poison.
Her daughter Anna, a famous photographer, returns home
after the funeral. There she waits for her recently adopted
daughter, the young Anna.

DENIED DESTINY, A DECLINING SPIRAL

If Julio Medem highlighted this idea in "Los Amantes del

Círculo Polar", Martí Rosselló brings it back with Anna K.

taking it one step farther with a deciding structure and

character representation. The spectator is witness to a story

where Anna reincarnates time and time again as mother and

child, encountering the same persons over and over again.

Characters united by destiny through many different lives,

alternatives and experiences: until an ironic desire is

completed, a destiny independent of the lives of the

characters and the directions they take.

THE SPECTATOR AS GOD

The spectator as a voyeur, peeking into the lives of the various

Annas and knowing more than any Anna about her past, and

predictable future. The spectator is who in reality lives the

dramas, tension and pain, because they are the only ones who

understand the reality of the situation. The spectator is the

only one who knows the true identity of each character, acting

as the omnipresent God observing helplessly as each Anna

unwittingly throws herself into her own particular hell,

committing her own particular sin, and bordering disaster.

THE HUMAN UNIVERSE POR EXCELENCE

Very few directors could handle the complexity of a story such

as this, and make it credible to the audience. Woody Allen used

humor in "Poderosa Afrodita" while Pedro Almodóvar used a

dramatic-comedy with "Todo sobre mi madre". Regardless of

the direction they chose, the common factors of death, murder

plots, bisexuality, family, vengeance, love, pride, desire, incest,

homosexuality, destiny, fate, and human relations in the same

story and without losing a touch of realism. The final message

is clear: the classic Greek tragedy is as true today as it was

then, and not just fictional, because the characters common to

the literary greats walk the streets of today.

A FAMILY FOR EVERYONE IN THE WORLD

The entire story of Anna K. Is linked to a specific family, the

one originated by Sara as in Lilith, giving birth to three

daughters bordering on tragedy. Anna’s family saga opens the

door to all genres as we follow the Anna’s of the dynasty. the

sentiments lived by our characters are so strong and human

that they need no nationality, ideology, or specific setting. The

identification, or apathy on the part of the spectator is created

by the strength of the story, that it could happen to anyone

anywhere in the world: although the novel is set in Barcelona

on the coast, its easily exportable to any location, because the

film is based on life, and has no certain time or place. A

production of this type foments the possibilities of an

international co production and a wide target audience that

can be filmed anywhere in the world.