In the controversial 1982 cult classic Pals (Colegas), three teenagers living in a Spanish suburb find themselves in a whole world of trouble when one of them, Rosario, gets pregnant and doesn’t have the money for an abortion.
Her brother, Antonio, and her lover, Jose, fail to find legitimate work to raise the cash and turn to hustling and petty crime. They find themselves in a series of misadventures and encounters with grimy criminals in their effort. Luckily they’ve got each other!
Pals is a classic Quinqui (trouble-maker cinema) film from legendary director Eloy de la Iglesia starring real-life siblings Antonio and Rosario Gonzalez as well as his regular leading man Jose Luis Manzano. The film has recently been restored by the cult cinema label Altered Innocence for a brand-new special edition Blu-ray.
Watch the trailer for the film below and click here to pre-order your copy. The new Blu-ray will be available starting February 22nd.
Short for “quincallero” (meaning “delinquent”) and pronounced “kinky”, “Quinqui” was a brutal subgenre of juvenile gang dramas produced in Spain in the 1970s and ’80s. But for Basque writer/director and outspoken gay socialist Eloy de la Iglesia (Cannibal Man, No One Heard the Scream), these three classics would become the most successful, controversial and tragically defining films of his entire career.
Jose Luis Manzano – the charismatic street kid discovered by de la Iglesia – stars in this graphic neorealist trilogy that depicts the crime, violence and drug abuse that ravaged the post-Franco nation, and led to the filmmaker and actor’s real-life addictions to heroin (and each other). Both would ultimately destroy them. The work they made together is fascinating as a representation of this gritty subgenre and their real-life relationship.
