Spanish films
Observations by J. Zimmerman.

Belle epoque.
Carne trémula.
Cría cuervos.
Cuando vuelvas a mi lado.
Hable con ella.
Los santos inocentes.
Todo sobre mi madre.

Harry Potter en Español	Observacíones en español.
El Herido (1946) de Alfredo Zalce. Los Aztecas: sus números, sus días y sus dioses. The Aztecs: their numbers, their days and their Gods.	Libros - learn Spanish. George Orwell, Homenaje a Catalonia - Homage to Catalonia.
	Teach Yourself Quick Fix Spanish Grammar Keith Chambers. A great book for quick studies or for desperate revisers.

Belle epoque.

The Belle epoque (1992, Director Fernando Trueba) is a story of a young man (Fernando) who deserts from the army and hides with a painter and his four daughters. One by one, Fernando seduces each daughter -- or they each seduce him.

The Belle epoque was a lively and romantic time in France from 1890 to 1914. The romantic feelings of that time appear in the film, although it is set in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.

In the surface, the film is a comedy, specially because of the irony. Some examples of the irony are:

1. Two soldiers discover Fernando when he has lowered his trousers.
2. Fernando says that he is atheistic, but has a Bible in his suitcase.
3. In the house of the whore, men play cards. They seem to be scum. They drink alcohol and they smoke. But we discovered that one of these men is the mayor. And another, in the black beret, is the priest. It is almost a farce.

The film begins with two as deaths that are as sad as they are ironic. The two soldiers that discovered Fernando argue. They have rifles. The older soldier prefers to release Fernando. The younger soldier gets angry and does not want to release Fernando. In the fury of the dispute, the younger soldier kills the older soldier. But like in a civil war, the soldiers are relatives. In his remorse (although the film seems to be a farce) the young soldier commits suicide.

This is one of the spirits of the film. Yes, there are many diversions and jokes. But behind the whole film it is the memory of the dead, the knowledge of horrors of a civil war.

The film finishes with the death of the priest. He is possible that he commits suicide. It is possible that others kill to him. Fernando and one of the daughters abandon their wedding in the church. The painter and his family leave the wedding and the memory of the death of the priest. The family departs from the father.

Yes, the film is a comedy but the deaths embrace Belle epoque.

Belle epoque (1992) Fernando Trueba, Director.

Carne trémula.

In Carne trémula (from Pedro Almodóvar), is it fair, what happens to David? The cop, Sancho, hurts his partner, David, because David has an affair with Clara, the wife of Sancho. Is that fair?

For the first half of the film, I think that the injury of David is unjust. But then I remember how David was distracted by the beauty of Elena at her home, when he should have been concentrating on his work. If he had concentrated on Victor and Sancho, Sancho would not have grasped Victor's weapon and forced Victor to shoot it at David. Thus, David has certain responsibility of his own injury.

In addition, David knows that Sancho is angry and that he becomes more angry when he drinks alcohol. David, therefore, must know what could be the consequences of his betrayal of Sancho by having an affair with Clara.

Therefore, I think that King Solomon would find it appropriate that David becomes paralyzed and that he loses Elena to Victor in the end.

Carne trémula (1997) Pedro Almodóvar, Director.

Cría cuervos.

The girl Ana gives her father, Anselmo, a milk glass to drink. However, Ana has put a powder into the milk. Ana believes that the powder is lethal and will kill to him. ( It is possible that Ana thinks that her Mother had committed suicide with the dust.)

But the father dies of a heart attack during an adulterous adventure with the wife of a friend. When Anselmo dies, Ana very calmly removes the glass from Anselmo's bedroom.

We discover that Ana has visions of her dead mother. It is not clear if these are true hallucinations, or if they are more like an invention or an imaginary friend of the girl. Once Ana sees itself jumping from the tile roof of the house and flying on the city. This seems to me more to me like hallucinations than something imagined.

Ana's Aunt Paulina arrives to take care of to Ana and her two sisters. The aunt is good with the three girls. She tries to teach to them manners and how to be organized. She accepts their games, even when the girls invade her privacy.

Then Ana gives her aunt a milk glass with the lethal dust. While Aunt Paulina is asleep, Ana again clears calmly the glass of her dormitory. Nevertheless the aunt does not die.

The excuse of Ana for the murder of her father is that her father did not help Ana's mother in her illness and death. The excuse of Ana for the murder of he aunt is not very clear, and to me it is because Ana seems to be a psychopath.

Perhaps that one is the point of the title, that the fascist regime raises the psychopaths. Maybe the strongest examples for the children are psychopaths.

Cría Cuervos (1975) Carlos Saura, Director.

Cuando vuelvas a mi lado.

The film Cuando vuelvas a mi lado is a story of women and jealousy. 'Mi' in the title means the mother, Adela, mother of three daughters. 'Tu' (of 'vuelas') means the papa.

For me, the film was difficult to follow because:
(a) The film interpolates the past with the present so very much, and
(b) the reasons for as much jealousy (especially in Adela) were not very clear to me.

My difficulty can have been due to my weak Spanish. Nevertheless, it can also indicate the inherent weakness in the film.

First, we see the jealousy in the second daughter (Ana) for her older sister, Gloria. Ana and Gloria wanted to be with the papa, but the papa preferred Gloria. We discovered that Adela (even more than Ana) was full of jealousy for Gloria. Adela decided that Gloria and her husband (Gloria's father) have a physical and sexual relationship. Then Adela killed her husband when, displeased with Adela's accusations, he tries to leave her.

After his death (the girls do not know he is dead), Adela confessed indirectly, in a way that will not be discovered until after she is dead. She directed that her body is to be incinerated. The daughters need to take one third part of her ashes to Aunt Rafaela (the sister of their mother), a third to Santos, and finally a third to Adela's husband.

It is only in trying to get the ashes to the father that Gloria discovers that her father had not left his family but he had been killed by their mother, that Santos, when he was a boy, saw the homicide, and that Aunt Rafaela made Santos buried the body.

In the end Gloria and Santos disperse the ashes of Adela at the side of the grave of Adela's husband by the side of the sea.

Cuando vuelvas a mi lado (video 2003) Gracia Querejeta, Director.

Hable con ella.

Pedro Almodóva of Spain directed the film Hable con ella (2002). The film begins and concludes with a modern (but using classical techniques) ballet.

The opening classical ballet shows two women (sleepwalkers staggering around a room of furniture) and a man (who clears the obstacles from the paths of the women). It is possible that the women represent the two women (Alicia and Lydia) who are unconscious in the film, each in a coma. Also it is possible that the man represents Benigno ("Benign"), the necrophiliac, who tries to help them move through their interior space. The other man, Marco, cannot speak with the unconscious women and therefore he not shown in this dance.

The final classic ballet is very sensual. Pairs, each of one woman and one man, step onto the stage facing each other. The movement is slow, majestic. At the same time, each woman twitches her hips, just a little. One pair seems to represent the possibility of a love affair between Alicia and Marco, the only ones alive in the end.

Hable con ella (2002) Pedro Almodóvar, Director.

Los santos inocentes.

In 1981 Miguel Delibes he published his novel Los santos inocentes. In 1984 Mario Camus made his film based on the novel.

In the story, Paco, Régula and their family are holy and innocent, and the most innocent are the Small Girl ("la Niña Chica", who is the smaller daughter of Régula and Paco) and Azarías (the brother of Régula). Both the Small Girl (called Rosario in the book by Delibes) and Azarías are mentally deficient.

Rosario cannot move, and is loose-limbed like a rag doll. She has damage of the brain or a type of autism. The incapacity of the Small Girl generates compassion in her family, which do not abandon her. Régula especially is very sweet and careful with her. Also Azarías takes care of the Small Girl and carries her. But Azarías is negligent, for example of the modesty of the clothes of the Small Girl. The rosary that Régula sends to Azarías symbolizes the Small Girl.

The disease of Azarías causes him to behave like someone with a very small mental age. He shits in public. Each morning pisses in his hands to protect them against chafing.

Azarías does not have a high social position nor is he able to make much thought. But Azarías is the judge, the jury and the executor of "young master Ivan" (señorito Iván) and the aristocratic society where the servants are enslaved and treated as animals.

Many Spanish films finish with a death that surprises to me. This one, in particular, I did not anticipate. I am not sure, but it is possible that each Spanish film must end with a death.

Los santos inocentes (1984) Mario Camus, Director.

Todo sobre mi madre.

Pedro Almodóvar of Spain wrote and directed the film Todo Sobre Mi Madre (1999). Pedro Almodóvar has said:

"My idea in the beginning was to make a film on the capacity to act of certain people who are not actors."

At the hospital in Madrid, the mother, Manuela (Cecilia Roth) plays the role of the widow and single mother.

All prostitutes act as seducers and lovers. Agrado (Antonia San Juan) and Lola (Toni Cantó) are men who appear as women.

Rosa (Penélope Cruz) acts like a nun, but she is pregnant.

Agrado acts like an actor when Huma Rojo (Marisa Walls) and Nina (Candela Peña) does not arrive at the theater.

There are many symbols, especially:

• The heart. Esteban (Eloy Azorin) dies, and his heart is the part of his body that the doctors transplant. There is much red (the color of the heart), from the name and the hair of "Huma Rojo" to the clothes of Agrado. Also, in Streetcar, Blanche looks for her heart ("Where is my heart?").

• The city of Barcelona. Barcelona is more anarchic than the City of Madrid. Madrid is the city of the machines and the common sense. Barcelona is the city of sex and passion, from the passion of the strange cathedral to the strange passions of the prostitutes.

• Two people, who look side-by-side at the camera. The people do not speak to the camera, but to one another. We see two strong companions that support each other. There are a dozen of examples. One is when Manuela and Esteban watch television. A second one is when Manuela sits next to Rosa for the first visit the doctor. A third one is when together Huma and Nina face Manuela.

• Images, simulations, representations, and lies. We see these in:
  • The film within the film Everything about Eve), contained within out film.
  • A simulation at her work, where Manuela represents a woman whose husband has died suddenly.
  • The play A street car Named Desire. Here Manuela acted the part of Stella, a woman who took to her child and left her husband. Similarly, Manuela took Esteban and left Lola.
  • The changes to the body of transsexuals.
  • The falsifications of paintings of Chagel - by the mother of the nun, Rosa.
  • The lies that each one protects themselves with.

Pedro Almodóva said:

"Their lies could help them avoid more than one tragedy."

We learned that it can be important to say lies, to avoid tragedy. We learned what Rosa said and what Rosa and Manuela and Agrado do:

"My work is to help people, even though I have only just met them."

Todo sobre mi madre (1999) Pedro Almodóvar, Director.

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Copyright © 2004-2011 by J. Zimmerman.

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