| Native Name: |
| ||
| Director: | Fernando Fernán Gómez | ||
| Producer: | Juan Estelrich | ||
| Screenplay: | Fernando Fernán Gómez | ||
| Cinematography: | Emilio Foriscot | ||
| Editing: | Rosa M. Salgado | ||
| Music: | Daniel J. White | ||
| Language: | Spanish | ||
| Country: | Spain | ||
| Studio: | Ada Films | ||
| Distributor: | Nueva Films |
Life Goes On (Spanish; Castilian: '''El mundo sigue'''|links=no) is a 1965 Spanish melodrama film directed and written by Fernando Fernán Gómez, which stars Lina Canalejas and Gemma Cuervo. It is based on the 1960 novel by Juan Antonio de Zunzunegui.
Set in post-War Madrid, primarily in Maravillas and Malasaña, the plot tracks the fratricidal feud between two sisters, Eloísa and Luisita.
Life Goes On is an adaptation of the 1960 novel El mundo sigue by Falangist author and RAE member, which depicts a bleak vision of Madrilenian society, with Zunzunegui being, according to Fernán Gómez, "the writer who has best brought to narrative the enormous political failure of the Spanish post-war period".[1] Despite the original author's acquaintance with the Francoist regime, the screenplay was banned by State censorship, and had to wait to a ministerial reshuffle (from Gabriel Arias-Salgado to Manuel Fraga) to be brought back, after some modifications. The film was produced by for Ada Films.[2] Shooting took place in 1963.[3] The film was nonetheless granted a negative C rating by the censorship board (on the basis of its purportedly poor aesthetics values), imperiling its commercial distribution.[4]
Rather than an outright distribution ban, the film's release was restricted,[5] with the film premiering at Bilbao's Cine Buenos Aires on 10 July 1965 under Nueva Films.[6] The film was re-released on 15 July 2015 by A Contracorriente Films in 15 Spanish cities.
Mirito Torreiro of Fotogramas rated the film 5 out of 5 stars, deeming it to be "one of the most terrifying and merciless moral portraits of Francoist Spain ever made by Spanish cinema".[7]