Viva La Muerte (DVD - 1970) 
Directed by Fernando Arrabal
Starring Anoek Ferjac, Nuria Espert, Mahdi Chaouch
(Cult Epics) www.cultepics.com
A child plays by the side of a dusty road when a military jeep full of stern looking soldiers howls past. A tape blares from the jeep's speakers. "The war is over!" It screams. "Traitors will be rounded up! We will kill half the country, if necessary! Viva La Muerte!" Yikes. Half the country? Welcome to the Spanish Civil War, Arrabal style. Find a trench and dig yourself in, because it's going to be a long, brutal night.
"Viva" follows the plight of young Fando (Chaouch), whose father was recently arrested for his lefty political leanings, and may actually already be dead. That might be the least of his problems, however. Like father like son, Fando has glimpses of bloody revolution swirling around in his fertile mind with every waking hour, and his behavior is starting to reflect these maddening visions. He climbs the town's clock tower to piss off of the roof, raining his anger down on the villagers, whose children beat him for his father's indiscretions; he brazenly brings a cigarette to school, and lights it up in class, knowing full well that this will result in him being sent "To the closet, with the rats" by his outraged nun-teacher. Fando might want to fuck his mother (Espert), as well, or at least kill her, since he daydreams these scenarios all the time. In horror movie swirls of psychedelic cover, he sees her in a cage, taking a semen shower, or poking his father's eyes out, or shitting on his head, or dancing around in a slaughtered cow's entrails.Turns out his bizarre fears are not unfounded- his mother is the one that turned his father in, in order to secure a safer life for Fando. It may be too late, however, since the boy already has fire in his eyes. As he strokes her hair and runs his fingers over her lips, he asks her if she'll ever die. "Yes", she tells him, "We all will someday." Fando thinks about it for a second. "Then I will use your belly as my drum", he says, triumphantly.
"Viva La Muerte" is a true story, at its essence, since Fernando Arrabal lived through the civil war, and his father was, in fact, turned in by his mother. Later on in the story, Fando is stricken by TB, as Arrabal was. The fact that this wildly violent, surrealigious nightmare of a film sprang from the fertile reptile brain of man who actually lived through its events make it even more compelling and immediate. As Arrabal states in his otherwise incoherent interview elsewhere on the disc, "Viva La Muerte" is a "personal" film, a way to "Kiss society on the mouth" from a man used to the bitter taste of bile. Much has been written about the film's 'shocking imagery', and there's no denying that it's a grueling, visceral experience, but it's not gratuitous at all. War, family and childhood- all are hellish at times. For Arrabal, all three were hellish at once, and this is his exorcised demon.
I still contend that Fernado Arrabal is crazy. In "Viva La Muerte", he shows you exactly how he got that way. Mandatory viewing. - Sleazegrinder