Childhood can be a most terrifying time. One must constantly observe the proscriptions of a primitive system of cause and effect that can be questioned only by the reckless or the ignorant. Squash a spider and it will rain. Step on a crack, break your mother's back. Sleep in the light of a new moon and you may never wake up. There is power in the knowledge of these things, as well as awful responsibility. One must be vigilant. One has to be alert for signs.

Such a child is Ana …, the 9-year-old heroine of Carlos Saura's beautifully acted, haunting Spanish movie, "Cria!" about a childhood so packed with trauma that one can scarcely believe that this acutely sensitive child will ever grow up to be [a] apparently composed, articulate woman…. (pp. 53-4)

"Cria!" is more ambitious [than "Cousin Angelica"] but, without the focal point of a strongly...