"Society," the late Spanish filmmaker Bigas Luna once said, "can be reliably divided into garlic eaters (surrealists) and those who abstain (sad realists)." You can guess how Luna categorized himself with a scene from Jamón Jamón (Ham Ham) in which Javier Bardem, fresh from a nude bullfight, seeks refuge and a foot rub from Penélope Cruz, whose natural response when he leans in close is to ask, "Did you eat garlic?" Bardem replies, "It's the best thing for bullfighting and for screwing." A sad realist, Luna was not. Jamón Jamón was the first installment of Luna's "Iberian passion trilogy" (Golden Balls and The Tit and The Moon are the other two), which the Roxie presents as part of the Bigas Luna Tribute. The tribute includes Anguish, Luna's 1987 horror oddity in which a deranged woman hypnotizes her adult son into harvesting human eyeballs. After working in advertising, conceptual art, and '70s porn, he was perhaps exactly the originator of surreal sex comedies that post-Francoist Spain deserved. A garlic eater all the way.
Jamón Jamón screens at 7 p.m. and the Bigas Luna Tribute runs through Sunday at the Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., S.F. $10; 863-1087 or visit roxie.com.
415-863-1087
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