This is Almodóvar’s first feature film. The plot follows the wild adventures of three friends: Pepi, an independent modern woman; Luci, a mousy, masochistic housewife; and Bom, a lesbian punk rock singer. The central theme of the film – female resilience, independence and solidarity – would be a constant throughout Almodóvar’s career. (Wikipedia)Read More »
Quote:
Colourful feature debut from experienced producer Miñarro offers an almost hallucinatory look into the world of Amadeo van Savoy, who for two years was king of an ungovernable Spain around 1870. This intriguing episode is transformed into a plea for beauty, creativity and joy.
At first sight, Falling Star presents itself as a historic film about the brief rule of Amadeo van Savoy, a prince from Turin who was king of Spain for two years. His mainstay, the powerful General Prim, was murdered before Amadeo was properly installed and then he had no one to fall back on; Spain in 1871 was already plagued by administrative and financial crises.
Read More »
Quote:
A heist-movie of such exquisitely bizarre loopiness to make Inception look like Ocean’s Eleven, Sergio Caballero’s The Distance (La distancia) is a likeably giggle-inducing dollop of deadpan surrealist whimsy. Observing a trio of telepathic Russian dwarves tasked with robbing an abandoned Siberian power-station, Caballero’s follow-up to 2010’s even more deliciously outre Finisterrae confirms the Catalan’s status as a puckish jester in the court of current European art-cinema. Adventurous audiences enduring the longueurs and waywardness of his gloriously uncompromised vision are rewarded with a hilariously abrupt finale that should delight many but leave others baffled and bemused. Festivals with late-night slots to fill will clamor for this cultish item, which might even find small distribution niches in eccentricity-embracing territories such as Japan and France.Read More »
IMDb comment by niathan:
I saw this film when it was released to the minor cinemas in the UK some 50 years ago; and the memory remains of a great musical score, and the tragedy of the storyline. I saw it again on video recently. The sound track was poor and the picture grainy; but it is one of two films that I saw again the next day, the other being Gladiator. The music theme is intensely tragic, and from the outset one knows that it heralds failure or death. Certainly one of George Sanders best performances; as a man working the black market to get pay back for what he lost in the war, but nemesis waits; Patricia Roc plays a refugee from Eastern Europe eaten with despair. He is attracted to her, selflessly wants to help her, and then falls in love with her, but she is too proud and hurt to accept help. Their love destroys him, and inevetably the girl and the doctor (Herbert Marshall), who brought the nemesis. The storyline is of complex intertwining destinies, where subsidiary characters are not who they appear to be. This is as a film, which diappointed the critics and struggled at the box office; but for the adolescent who saw it, and the retired gentleman who saw it again it is one of the greatest films (taking into account its age)whose story is more akin to an opera.Read More »
Quote:
ONE YEAR, TWO COMPUTERS AND AN OCEAN BETWEEN THEM
One couple, one year apart and two distant cities: Los Angeles and Barcelona. Love is Alexandra and Sergio’s only weapon and their computers their only tools to fight the 10,000 kilometers that stand in the way of their future together.
Read More »
Pseudo-autobiographical movie by director and producer Augusto M. Torres with an exploration of his own narrative obsessions as director and his work as producer of many Spanish independent or experimental films. In the film he is supposed to be dead and many of his friends and colleagues in real life (mostly film directors, screenwriters and actresses) appear as themselves and talk with a (fictitious) daughter of the director who is investigating his father’s past. The daughter is played by excellent and beautiful actress Karme Màlaga (also in “La vida abysmal” / “Life on the edge”) and her investigation begins when she finds her father’s old films. Self-reference, metalanguage and reflections on the nature of cinematographic narrative (and on the drawbacks of human relationships) make this film unconventional and interesting. The main characters are the daughter, her boyfriend Fabrizio (Carlo d’Ursi, actor and producer in “Unione Europea”) and the beautiful young woman she meets during her research (Ariadna Cabrol, actress in “Perfume: the Story of a Murderer”, “Joves”/”Youth”, “Estocolm” and the Catalan hit TV series “Porca Misèria”).
Read More »
Quote:
Fernando Trueba, one of the most prestigious filmmakers in Spain, has set his latest film somewhere in occupied France in the summer of 1943, not far from the Spanish border. An old renowned sculptor, tired of life and mankind?s folly, rediscovers the desire to work and sculpt his last piece thanks to the arrival of a young Spanish woman who has escaped from a refugee camp. “The lovely and poignant drama ‘The Artist and the Model’ stirringly presents art, life and death as one irrevocably tangled trio” (Los Angeles Times). “[Trueba and Carriere] imbue the material with genuine feeling-exploring the melancholy of waning days and a defiantly naive belief in artistic transcendence.Read More »
Quote:
The politics of the past and present begin to merge during the making of a motion picture in this drama from director Icíar Bollaín. Spanish movie director Sebastián (Gael García Bernal) and his producer Costa (Luis Tosar) have arrived in Bolivia to shoot a picture about Columbus’ exploration and exploitation of the New World. While Sebastián has come to Bolivia for realistic scenery, Costa has chosen the location for the cheap and abundant supply of labor. An open casting call for extras attracts far more people than the picture needs, but when Costa tries to send them away, one would-be actor, Daniel (Juan Carlos Aduviri), makes a strong and eloquent case for fair treatment of the locals, and Sebastián casts him as Hatuey, the chief of a native tribe who fought the invading Spaniards. As Sebastián stages scenes of revolt against would-be colonists, a real battle is brewing in Colombia — the government has privatized the national water works, and the price of water has jumped by 300 percent, leading to protests and riots in the streets of Cochabamba. Daniel is one of the activists protesting price gouging for something as essential as water — will Sebastián and his colleagues join him in speaking out against this injustice? También la Iluvia (aka Even the Rain) was an official selection at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.Read More »
Casanova hires a new servant to witness the last moments of his life. Leaving a gallant and libertine Swiss castle, he decides to spend his remaining days in the poor and dark lands of eastern Europe. There, his society life and rationality begin to collapse under a romantic and violent force, represented by Dracula and his eternal power.
Golden Leopard at Locarno 2013
Read More »