[Cria and Cousin Angélica] complement, in a way strengthen, each other; their methods are comparable, and they suggest what it is about life that seems to haunt Mr. Saura.

I say "seems," because it is presumptuous to generalize about the preoccupations of a man of Saura's sensibility on the basis of two works. But, speaking tentatively, what moves him are the passions and terror, the courage and ignorant audacity of childhood that go unremarked by the presiding adults whose catch-all admonitions are "mind your manners" and "run off now and play." His way of dealing with this material is to employ parallel time tracks, so smoothly interfaced that one must be alert to recognize from moment to moment which segment of experience is dominant. To say that Saura employs flashbacks would not at all convey the effect, which is to persuade the viewer that past and present...