After spending three years in captivity in Tunis, Bartolomé returns home Extremadura with the only hope to eat his favorite dish: the pork. Along the way he meets a deserter who is traveling with a sow.
Acting
Alfredo Landa commits fully to the most pathetic protagonist ever filmed.
Production
Grimy 15th-century Spain you can practically smell through the screen.
Director
José Luis Cuerda
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Based on the 1612 novel 'El Lazarillo de Tormes,' this is peak picaresque—Spain's gift to literature about terrible people on terrible journeys. Cuerda updates it with deliberate anachronisms that enraged purists.
Alfredo Landa won Best Actor at Berlin for this, beating Denzel Washington in Malcolm X. The jury reportedly cited 'commitment to degradation.'
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