Plot summary:
Leo (Angel Jové), a psycopath and a silent, obsessed and deeply disturbed man, concieves a progressive fascination for Bilbao
(Isabel Pisano), a striptease ballerina, who to reach the end of the month, she has to be a prostitute. Leo studies her movements and ends up kidnapping her, as if she was his object to add to his erotic collection.Read More »
A young couple, passionately in love, in a mutual giving action, exchange their sexual identity.Read More »
A story about love deception, the return of the past, a tragedy, or even the violence contained in an everyday detail, appear themselves to push them towards the abyss, into the undeniable pleasure of losing control.
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The first ten minutes of Argentina’s Wild Tales, nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars, perfectly set you up for the experience you are about to have. A woman boards an airplane, then strikes up a conversation with the man across the aisle from her. It turns out he knows her ex-boyfriend. So does the woman seated in front of him. So does everyone else on the plane. It’s too much to be a coincidence, and it’s not. The guy they all know is the pilot; his passengers are people who have done him wrong. The scene ends with a stunning Twilight Zone-esque twist, then segues into an opening credits sequence set against photos of wild, often predatory animals. Writer/director Damian Szifron grabs you by the throat from the get-go, then proceeds to deliver a dazzling ride.Read More »
A 48-hour leave from reform school brings life lessons for the teenage protagonist of “7 Virgins,” a street-kids piece that combines energy and delicacy to striking and subtle effect. The best Spanish movie of its type since Fernando Leon’s 1998 “Barrio,” pic rises above genre standard with scrupulous attention to detail and an engaging central tandem. Downsides are lapses into sentimentality and visual deja vu, and an occasional inability to exploit the emotional potential. “Virgins” should snuggle up in plenty of fest beds, with arthouse interest a certainty in Spain-friendly territories.Read More »
A poor man in his mid seventies lives alone in a house near the beach in the south of Mexico. He doesn’t have the and deed and a foreign man claims the property is his. The man attends a hearing to solve the conflict, but nothing gets resolved. During this time he starts losing his mind. Memories of the past start hunting his daily life. He ends up losing his property and his house gets demolished. He embarks on a journey to the mountains in search for people he knew in the past. A memory of his younger self hunts him throughout the trip. He ends up finding some people he knew, but no one he can stay with, so he continues wandering through the forest and into his memories. He meets his younger self, but doesn’t recognize him. They get drunk together, sing songs of the past and nearly pass out after a long night of drinking.Read More »
Synopsis: Veteran director Jose Luis Cuerda delivered this sensitive portrait of a child coming of age during a tense political situation just before the Spanish Civil War. On his first day of school, frail eight-year-old Moncho (Manuel Lozano) is so terrified by the imposing figure of his teacher Don Gregorio (Fernando Fernan Gomez) that he flees into the nearby woods. In spite of his authoritarian appearance, the schoolmaster proves to be a kind, free-thinking Republican who teaches Moncho the virtues of being good. The boy is soon spending much of his time with the elderly Gregorio in the Galician countryside, admiring such wonders of nature as the tongue of a butterfly. Other people in young Moncho’s world include his down-to-earth mother (Uxia Blanco), his Republican father, and his older brother, who plays the saxophone with a group of local musicians. However, when the Fascists roll into town, the boy’s life changes forever. La Lengua de las Mariposas was screened at the 1999 San Sebastian Film Festival. -Jonathan Crow (AMG)Read More »
Tal cual podría sugerir el sentido más estricto de un invernadero, esto es, un lugar donde las plantas o alguna otra especie se confina para afianzar mejor que en el exterior los ribetes de su propio génesis, en “Invernadero”, el film de Gonzalo Castro, el escritor mexicano Mario Bellatin quedará en evidencia en el funcionamiento de sus momentos coyunturales. Un retrato de los núcleos básicos de su cotidianidad: su prótesis de metal, diálogos con personas de su entorno, relaciones entre lo material, la verdad y el complot, teorías disparatadas, todo funciona a modo de estrategia narrativa donde lo documental fundamenta una posible ficción. Y con un actor sin par, el propio Bellatin.Read More »
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H6 tells the story of Antonio Frau, a serial killer set free after serving 25 years in jail for the violent murder of his girlfriend. After inheriting and old motel from a relative he never knew, he sees this as a signal and takes to his holy task of relieving the grief of those who have lost the will to live. He takes his victims to room Number 6 in the motel where he ‘purifies’ them, while, at the same time, continues his everyday life next to his wife. A mistake leads to his arrest, and his plan to become rich and famous takes relevance.Read More »
Rare wrestling movie, a crossover between the lucha and blaxploitation genres. The story involves black dockworker Pedro getting mixed up with a gang of arms smugglers and falsely imprisoned on a charge of murder. He is finally released and Mil Máscaras convinces him to become a luchador, wrestling under the name of “Black Power”.
This movie was made as a showcase for former Mr. Olympia Sergio Oliva (who boasted a physique El Santo and Blue Demon could only dream of) and is actually a pretty legitimate drama compared to some of the off-the-wall lucha pictures being made at that time. Still, it reeks of the 1970’s with its loud fashions, garish color schemes and campy nightclub acts. Like many wrestling films of this era it was shot outside Mexico as a cost-cutting measure, in this case Venezuela.Read More »