Valley of Sighs

Story

Peace, tranquility, awesome scenery – the Pyrenees offer a perfect ambience for love, so it seems. Yet, appearences are deceptive. Few marriageable women live in the remote valley of the Spanish Pyrenees where Josh, Juan and Ubaldo reside. Since the early eighties busloads of young women have been invited from afar to come to parties where the male villagers hope to find potential wives among them. So far only Jos? has been lucky: he found a wife and the marriage with his Lola still holds out. Is one marriage enough to preserve a village?

Human Interest

As a kind of prelude to the celebrated Television show “Farmer Seeks wife”, Valley of Sighs deals wittingly with the same issue. Shot beautifully on location in the Spanish Pyrenees, this documentary takes you to a breathtaking place where time seems suspended. It is a paradise that will soon be without people. In the beginning of the 20th century the political and economic history of Spain emphasizes the basically rural and backward character of a society that was modernized very slowly. In the first half of the 20th century most Spaniards lived in villages or in towns of fewer than 10,000 people, but by the 1970s over half lived in cities of 50,000 or more. In the 60s and 70s political change (Franco died 1977) and industrial development spured explosive urban growth. This occured with very little planning, leaving large parts of the countryside abandonned.

Historic Interest

By the end of this decade, more than half of the world’s population will live in cities, making humanity a predominantly urban species for the first time in its history. In European countries urbanization is reaching values around 80%, meanwhile the countryside is becoming abandoned.

Origins of cities

The City is a relatively recent form of social organization. Homo sapiens, the present human form has existed on earth for about 40,000 years, but cities have existed for less than 10,000 years. Jericho in about 7000 B.C. grew from village to a “city” of about 3,000 (3,500 – 4,000 B.C.) first large cities (population of about 25,000) were established in Mesopotamia (Further reading).