Although many fear the arrival of inclusion, the reality is that nothing favors an art like cinema more than the arrival of different perspectives that enrich the way of understanding it. If it is already minimally reasonable that, for example, 50% of the world’s population can aspire to the same opportunities that the other 50% already enjoys, the inclusion of other voices can give another interesting tonality to cinematographic art.
But offering space so that we have a plurality of voices that expand the possibilities of the films that we will receive is as necessary as re-evaluating the films that we have received, and those voices that, although marginalized, have managed to break down barriers and offer works of great value.
Because, merely considering what has been achieved in his filmography, filmmakers like Ida Lupino they should be discussed as capital figures. For his narrative ability, for his contribution to independent cinema and for masterpieces like ‘the hitchhiker‘, that we can enjoy and Filmin.
Journey to the heart of darkness
Lupino excelled as an actress, playing various women considered “complicated”, from murderesses to ambitious widows. But all this earned her to amass a mattress with which to launch into production with her husband Collier Young with the company The Filmakers Inc., created to carry out low-budget projects but ambitions to make social cinema. Lupino ended up jumping into directing in 1949 with ‘Not Wanted‘, when the previous director Elmer Clifton he became ill and might not complete the film.
That film, centered on the plight of a single pregnant woman, was one of several melodramatic efforts dealing with issues of primarily female interest. Lupine he knew in part that the industry would not take his efforts seriously that way -jokingly commented that as a director it was a discount version of Don Siegelfollowing being a discount version of Bette Davis as an actress – so she wanted to show that she might make movies in another key as well as anyone.
And so he launched into making ‘El autopista’, the first powerful film noir directed by a woman. The premise mightn’t be simpler, following a couple of travelers who decide to take a hitchhiker into their car, only to regret the decision shortly following the macabre game this unexpected psychopath decides to get them into.
an authentic and perverse psychological exercise developed in just one hour and eleven minutes, but knows how to get the most out of each of them. Lupino knows how to enhance with precise narration, great tension management and excellent direction of actors what might easily be classified as a B movie to walk around the house.
‘The hitchhiker’: prodigious film noir exercise
But his ability as a filmmaker and a particular look, which does not need lavish staging exercises to be noticed, make every moment of ‘The Hitchhiker’ a wonderful gem. An impeccable exercise in noir style, where he casts a curious but cynical look into the heart of darkness, reflected in these characters and every moment they live within this devastating thriller.
It doesn’t need to look like a big movie theater to be one. Lupino turns ‘The Hitchhiker’ is a feat of independent cinemanarrating with the efficiency and professionalism of a studio film without having the means of one -but also not without seeming like a film with a non-existent budget-.
For how he progresses the drama in each scene, how he makes interesting human conflicts flourish, and how he observes male behaviors, here we find an excellent filmmaker, who does not mind entering into conversation as one of the teachers who has seen art. Others have entered with films notably smaller than this one.
