Spanish Cinema S/D

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Never having been that world-straddling juggernaut that Hollywood is and that French or German cinema might have been at some point, Spanish cinema at its best combines efficient Hollywood-storytelling with more artsier Continental willingness to deal with some more personal experiences, along with a taciturn anger and sadness all its own. Some people think it's all about Almodóvar, who I'm not knocking, on the contrary, but there are plenty of other giants who walked that dry earth.

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 02:58 (nineteen years ago)

un chien andalou

(get it out of the way, I suppose)

Cue Luis Bunuel for the next 300 posts.

― Louis Jagger (Haberdager), Friday, 11 August 2006 03:01 (nineteen years ago)

Some people call him the post cowboy
Some people just call him Luis.

S:¡Bienvenido Mister Marshall!
Spanish villagers gussy up their town in hope of receiving some post-WWII American dollars. Directed by Luis García Berlanga. Co-written with Juan Antonio Bardem.

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 03:05 (nineteen years ago)

S: El Sur/The South
Dreyer-esque exacting genius Victor Erice's follow-up to his famous El espíritu de la Colmena/The Spirit Of The Beehive, based on a soon-to-be-published short novel by his wife, tells the story of daughter's love for her classically laconic father, in beautiful Cornell-box detail.

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 03:16 (nineteen years ago)

S: Familia
Dark comedy in which cranky rich man hires a bunch of actors to pretend to be his family on his birthday(?), said actors sometimes going off script when off and even on camera. Featuring the guy who played the therapist in our next search.

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 03:18 (nineteen years ago)

S: Abre los ojos/ Open Your Eyes. Moving Beauty and the Beast tale in which self-absorbed rich playboy meets girl of his dreams only to lose it all after suffering horribly disfiguring accident the day after. Then, owing to a miracle of medical science, he gets it all back- or does he? Lead character much more sympathetic for being shown as a suave jerk beforehand. Remade as Vanilla Sky.

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 03:22 (nineteen years ago)

S: Adosados/Suburbs Slick, clever, dark and funny tale of a respectable hombre-in-a-pinstripe-suit who gets involved in a classic ever-deepening series of comic misunderstandings. Directed by Mario Camus, who had earlier adapted for the screen Nobel-prize winning Camilo José Cela's famous novel La Colmena/The Beehive

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 03:28 (nineteen years ago)

S: El amor perjudica seriamente la salud/Love Can Seriously Damage Your Heath Beautiful romantic comedy that eats it cake and has it too, opening with some Breakfast At Tiffany's glamour, and following a decades long affair between a pair of star- and class-crossed lovers who usually are married to other people. The female lead is perfectly played at different ages by Penelope Cruz and Ana Belén. The couple meet cute when Penelope sneaks into the Beatles' Madrid hotel room and, being stopped by her security guard potential new boyfriend, pretends to be the group's manager, unfortunately mispronouncing the word "Beatles" as if the 't' were dental and the second syllable was a plural French definite article.

― Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 03:40 (nineteen years ago)

S: Julio Medem.
Everything he's ever done - Tierra, Vacas, The Red Squirrel, Lovers of The Artic Circle, Sex and Lucia, The Basque Ball. All varying degrees of CLASSIC.

― Ruairi Wirewool (Ruairi Wirewool), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 13:21 (nineteen years ago)

Alex de La Iglesias does a fine line in macabre comedies - Day of The Beast, Accion Mutante, Perdita Durango, 800 Balas, La Communidad and Ferpect Crimen are all gloriously tasteless. A bit like a more cheesy, violent, outre Almodovar.

― Ruairi Wirewool (Ruairi Wirewool), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 13:24 (nineteen years ago)

This one:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051588/

Spanish co-production, so cheating a bit, but genius film.

Maybe an early example of international co-production?

Also, this one:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073028/

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

four years pass...

Lock out looks promising

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 9 November 2010 20:31 (fifteen years ago)

eight years pass...

Wonder what that was.

There is something in Lovers of the Arctic Circle that I can't figure out. There is a family photo taken with the intermediate aged Ana and Otto which is shown later with the full-grown Otto but Ana seems to be a completely different person. Scratching my head thinking maybe Medem had a daughter as well as a son and put her into the movie through that picture.

― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 25 December 2018 04:41 (six years ago)

He does indeed have two daughters.

Looks like my current screenname was a big inspiration to him: http://www.juliomedem.org/miscelanea/erice.html

― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 25 December 2018 04:48 (six years ago)

Okay, I guess there is another scene, where Otto is visiting his father, where he thinks of the photo and sees a closeup and it does look like Najwa Nimri.

― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 25 December 2018 05:34 (six years ago)

one year passes...

We finally got round to seeing Quién Te Cantará by Carlos Vermut last night (starring the immediately above-mentioned Najwa Nimri) and absolutely loved it. A quietly strange and beautiful film, which I fulsomely recommend. I'd never heard of Vermut before, but want to track down his two previous films now. Has anyone else seen this or his others?

― brain (krakow), Thursday, 2 January 2020 12:38 (five years ago)

three years pass...

Completely unfamiliar with that director, but that film sounds interesting and is on Netflix so maybe I will watch.

Also meant to revive this because Victor Erice has a new film and Ana Torrent is in it, but I have heard little else about it.

Finally, saw Penélope Cruz this week give an excellent performance in an Italian movie, think maybe I will watch that Farhadi film she made with her husband.

― I & I, Claudius (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 19 May 2023 20:49 (two years ago)

Wow, Najwa Nimri is in a 2018 Julio Medem film I never even heard of called The Tree of Blood which is also on Netflix.

― I & I, Claudius (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 19 May 2023 21:17 (two years ago)

one year passes...

New Victor Erice is currently playing at The Film Forum.

― The Zing from Another URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 31 August 2024 00:36 (one year ago)

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