“A revolutionary film.

An unrepeatable milestone. A bleeding and committed work of art. This film would rile a few people and would raise every king of criticism by telling the story of a rural family forced to shift to the city and openly tackling the black market theme, as well as presenting a grey and suffering Spain. Censorship cut part of the film but did not succeed at quashing its audacity and its depth."

EL PAIS
Miguel Angel Palomo


“Nieves Conde's best-known work, this portrait of postwar Madrid set the precedent for Spanish Neorealist filmmaking (…) in the way it portrays poverty and in its use of location filming and unknown actors. (…) Tackling issues virtually unseen during Franco's rule, including rural immigration into the cities, poverty, prostitution, unemployment, and class conflicts, the film follows a family's migration from the countryside in hope of a new life in the city. Furrows is an expression of the contradictions within Franco's regime. While the Catholic Church considered the film "deeply dangerous," the political wing labeled it of "national interest." The film wasn't released until its controversial ending was removed.”

MOMA


“Surcos/Furrows (1951), has been hailed both as a masterpiece and as the only true example of Spanish neorealist filmmaking.”

ALLMOVIE
Sandra Brennan


“An exceptional film (…), superb. (…) Declared of national interest.

Furrows faces up to a current and highly topical theme of modern life; a terrifying theme we have experienced either close at hand or in the distance. It is the drama of a society without purpose or desire apart from satisfying its ambitions at any cost. People who think in material terms only and dream with a false well-being abandon the cradle and burial plot of their ancestors to go and live in a strange, hostile and harsh city that will crush them with its powerful tentacles.”

LA VANGUARDIA

3/11/51


“Furrows was the first stone in the pool of a hypocritical national conscience.

How to understand the shock raised by Furrows when it looks so naïve today? In all its ingenuousness, the film was social cinema because it got closer to reality, because it described the present situation instead of history, the suburb instead of big moustached gentlemen and dirty business substituting past glories. The film was shocking for all that.

José María García Escudero


“Furrows opened the way to realism, something until then almost unprecedented in the Spanish cinema.

Based on a convincing atmosphere and portraying more archetypes than characters, Furrows undoubtedly brought to fruition the first example of social cinema during Franco’s era and was one of the films that greatly influenced the Spanish cinema during the following decades.

EL MUNDO
Alberto Bermejo


With a moralism that seems irritating today, Furrows dared to point at some of the corruptions which served as a basis for that political structure. Today Furrows is left as proof of a path that did not develop in time.”

EL PAIS
Diego Galán


“Furrows is the first film that sets out a current social problem in the Spanish cinema.

The novelty, the courage and the current validity of this film are considerable whether we focus on the film itself or we try to draw general consequences of the highly important evolution Furrows represents in our cinema.

Really the hardness of the film overwhelms, due perhaps to the absence of unprecedented examples in our cinema and anywhere else. But thanks to its hardness and to its courage Furrows achieves the exceptional category that makes it apart from the rest.”

LA VANGUARDIA  31/10/1951
H. Saenz Guerrero



“One if the hardest stories ever produced by the cinema in this country and bearing in mind the times it was produced.

The unavoidable concessions to National Catholicism do little to reduce the harshness used by a magnificent cast to display the poverty, the ignorance or the lack of scruples a whole country was destined to suffer for decades jut to be able to eat.

EL CRITICON
Angel Lapresta

“María Asquerino played a memorable character. She was a real icon in the history of the Spanish cinema. She was “Pili” half way between a woman of film noirs, and a broken woman of the Italian Neorealism whose chain-smoker image became an icon.”

ABC
José E. Arenas


“A contemporary subject, freshness of characters and themes that reach audiences regardless of age and social condition define the value of Furrows as an essential social documentary for the historical memory of the postwar period. The film also allows current generations and those who lived through those difficult times to easily identify social or geographical location.”

HISTORIA Y COMUNICACION SOCIAL
Amparo Guerra Gómez