Our Books

Flashing Bodies / Action Five / "Arrebato Picante!"

Where: at The Cinema Museum as part of Spain Now! festival

As part of Spain Now! festival, Completely Naked presents Flashing Bodies Action Five at The Cinema Museum.

Video by Pablo Robertson de Unamuno

Text

For this action, we wanted to recreate a world of fantasy happening in a small cinema, where - like in dreamy sequences - reality is mixed with memories, icons and the magic stuff of what movies are made of.

We love the movies of the 60’s and 70’s! They are very special, great experimental movies done in an era when it was possible to question and take risks (in a very Completely Naked style). In those movies we can see certain treatments and a freedom that today has vanished because of fear, political correctness and, even worse, commercial reasons. Those movies are a constant reminder that instead of evolving intellectually and fighting for our freedoms, we have fallen into a safety net where not too much is allowed.

Can we think of contemporaries for Fassbinder, Liliana Cavani, Passolini, Russ Meyer, the Italian Neorealism, the Nouvelle Vague, Goddard, Andy Warhol, Tinto Brass or Kubrick? just to mention a few of the most representative for our project

The 70’s were also a very special time in Spain. With the end of a dictatorship that lasted for forty years, society was literally ready to explode, eager for freedom and quite especially the sexual kind! After so many years of repression, the Spanish people were craving for freedom of expression, sex, erotic movies, and experimentation (and political changes, obviously).This is where our title for
this action comes: “Arrebato Picante!” Difficult if not impossible to translate ’arrebato’ means a sudden rush / impulse for doing something, an incontrollable desire, whether for good or bad (usually both, actually). ‘Picante’ refers to the erotic movies of the 70’s; they used to say that a movie with some sexual content was spicy, ‘picante’. We also wanted to homage the Spanish movie "Arrebato" (1980) by Ivan Zulueta.

In Flashing Bodies / Action Five “Arrebato Picante!” we invited the audience and the participating performers not just to recreate scenes of those movies that inspired us, but to actually experience an ‘arrebato picante’. We wanted basically, to recreate a time when people believed in utopia, free sex, experimentation and above all in joy!

From mainstream American films to the European experimental ones, the movies of this era are both existentialist and young at heart, with a naïve faith in the human being. We at Completely Naked like people, freedom and breaking the taboos imposed by a society every time more rigid. We like to question self imposed rules and we like to create happiness.

We hope you enjoy this book about the most decadent and grotesque action we have done so far. We would like to thank everyone who took part, Spain NOW! for commissioning it and The Cinema Museum for hosting us in their fantastic space.

Pau Ros at Completely Naked

Photos:

--- the making of Arrebato Picante:

*(the copyright of the movies screengrabs images belongs to their owners)

The Book:

"Arrebato Picante!" by Completely Naked

Commissioned by

Venue:

The Cinema Museum
The Master's House
2 Dugard Way
London SE11 4TH

Credits:

Flashing Bodies / Action Five "Arrebato Picante!" is a Completely Naked project

Idea, realisation & design: Pau Ros & Pablo Goikoetxea

Production & Project Coordinator: Rania Bellou

Photos: Pablo Goikoetxea & Pau Ros

Video: Pablo Robertson de Unamuno

Make up: Lefteris

Stylist: Oliver Hymans

Photos Making Of: Nicolas Gaillard

Performers:

Irma Andinda,
Olrick-Anselme Olenga,
Devon Z,
Juan De Dios Miro,
Montse Roig,
La Hara Pietro,
Julien Aschner,
Alejandro,
Thomas Blomberg,
Cristina,
Carmen Viñuela,
L de Luis,
Gracia
and the participative audience

Flashing Bodies Action Five 'Arrebato Picante!'
was commissioned by Spain NOW!

Performed and shot at The Cinema Museum,
London on the 5th November 2010


© copyright by Completely Naked, 2010