Ramón del Valle-Inclán

In the empty house of his family, Ramon, a poet, remembers the last day of the life of his master: the last time he went out with his friend don Latino de Hispalis, his talk with a minister and his dinner with Ruben Dario.

A work of Valle-Inclán, the story takes place in Galicia in the early twentieth century. To escape poverty, the wife of a sacristan uses a hydrocephalic child as a sideshow attraction. This causes a confrontation with her sister-in-law.

In the fall of 1824 Javier Montenegro, Bradomin Marquis is spared death hanging by Captain Casares, and in return, the Marquis agrees to help him escape to America. Adaptation of "Sonata de Otoño" and "Sonata de Estío" of Ramón María del Valle-Inclan, which included elements Bardem later works of the author.

In Santa Fe de Tierra Firme, an imaginary Latin American country, the indigenous dictator Santos Banderas rules with an iron fist. A group of rebels trying to seize power by force while some liberals try a change of government legally.

A child is witness to an assault on a monk by the gang of Lorenzo the Fifth. The monk escapes and takes refuge in the estate of Doña Carlota, a countess who lives with her son Juan and daughter Beatriz. Basilisa, the maid, conjures the devil to free her son from an irreversible illness, but to do so the evil must be transmitted to an innocent soul, and for that she chooses Beatriz. The child begins to be the victim of a possession, for which everyone blames the monk.

Mari Gaila (Silvia Pinal), is an adulteress who lives between ragged, thieves, prostitutes, dwarfs and other misshapen beings, in a rare box at a country and a vague time. Her husband, is a poor sacristan who agrees with other relatives to do business with the display of his orphaned nephew, a mentally retarded dwarf. Caught in committing adultery with her lover, Mari Gaila is caged naked and punished by the people.

A beautiful teenage shepherdess named Adega sleeps one night with a mysterious pilgrim in a barn of impoverished and superstitious Galicia of the nineteenth century. The overwhelming fanaticism of the villagers motivates them to consider the outsider an envoy of Satan, reason why they deny him the lodging. The pilgrim, on the other hand, will react by cursing the people with plague and misery.

Mr.Manolito and Mr.Estrafalario– characters of Valle-Inclán’s plays– spend the last days of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship chasing the plays written by their admired Valle-Inclán whose works are banned by a Government Law. One day, they find a piece of The Daughter of the Captain, a portrait of the crazy soldiers who returned home after losing the Spanish Colonies. In other occasion, they attend one of the limited performances of Valle-Inclán’s:The deceiving Mr. Friolera. They are just longing for the best premiere ever: the Second Spanish Republic, a drama on for a very short time. It was a beautiful dream thought, like the Esperpentos (strange-looking characters) of Valle-Inclán.