Category Archives: Spanish Films

This film from El Salvador was loosely based on Othello in that we have one character stoking jealousy and distrust in another, and it doesn’t end well. Pablo’s father has recently taken up with a young girl who is almost his age, and in retribution for an earlier betrayal, Pablo convinces his father that his new lover has been unfaithful with his step-brother. We only learn about this childhood betrayal in cut-away shots that gradually become longer, allowing the viewer to finally make sense of this betrayal and its effect on Pablo. The whole family goes away to an island for a holiday, which provides a lot of striking scenery and a sense of mounting dread, where Pablo’s plan comes to an inevitable ending.

I could have done with a bit of historical background on this movie, set in Perú during the 1980s and 90s. Ana and Lucho are childhood sweethearts, and they continue as lovers in adulthood. She wants to be a film-maker, and they share a love of music, swapped via cassette tapes. However, their lives are blighted by the Shining Path movement (which I really don’t know much about) and the reprisals against it where armed militias terrorize the people. More and more young people leave Perú to travel to America and Europe or even Timbuktu – a dream that both Ana and Lucho had held since childhood- but it does not work out that way. The child actors seemed incompatible with the adult actors, and so I never really believed that they were the same characters, and at times the film seemed to be merely a vehicle for some retro music and staging of the 80’s and ’90s.

It was OK.

Ariela is a young Jewish woman living in Mexico City, working as a muralist. She is one of the last of her friendship group to be married, and her family is keen for her to marry a Jewish man from within the close-knit Jewish community. But when she falls in love with Ivan, who is not Jewish, she comes under intense pressure from her family and the community to break off with him. The lecturer introducing the movie explained that although there had always been Jews in Mexico, there was an influx of Jews from Syria in 1918 with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, and that they formed a tightly-held, exclusive and prosperous community in Mexico City. This was a lovely film, and the main actress was luminous. In many ways, it could have been set in any Jewish community throughout the world, but it was interesting to see this community in Mexico.

I enjoyed it.

Well, it had subtitles in Spanish because I put them there. The soundtrack was actually in German and English, even though it was directed by a Spanish director. I almost gave up after 10 minutes of looking close up – VERY close up!- at a woman with heavily mascaraed eyes and a slash of red lipstick, with a halo of blonde curls in what looked like a shawl. It’s strange that after all this time on Zoom, we are accustomed to staring at faces in a way that we probably would not do in real life, but nonetheless, staring at this woman felt very intrusive. She is in jail for murder, but she is also in her own rather ethereal performance of her own life. I’m glad that I stayed with it, but I’m also glad that it only went for an hour. Being in the presence of such a strong ego, so intimately, is confronting.

It was available through Instituto Cervantes for 48 hours.

It’s always a bit of a problem when you’re watching a movie that is referencing a movie you haven’t seen. This recent Spanish film is a remake of ‘Hannah Takes the Stairs’ a mumblecore film that starred Greta Gerwig. Actually, looking at the English trailer for ‘Hannah Takes the Stairs’, the two are very similar.

Nothing much happens in this film, set during summer in Spain, when a young girl is an intern at a publishing house. She shares an office with two men, both of whom are in love with her. Which is she going to choose?

Instituto Cervantes is currently running its Pelikula Film Festival during the first week of October. The movies are spoken in Spanish with only English subtitles available. It is running in Australia, The Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia. The tickets are free.

El Cover (2021) is set in Benidorm, on the Spanish coast. Remind me not to go there: full of high rise buildings and British tourists. Dani works in a restaurant as a waiter/short order cook, part of the resident workforce catering for tourists who come for a good time frequenting bars and ‘tribute’ shows. He meets two girls, Adele and Amy who are impersonators (of Adele and Amy Winehouse) and tentatively launches on his own career which has been overshadowed by the influence of his own, now deceased, entertainer parents. There’s a lot of music in this film- it threatened to turn into a musical- and the plot line was a bit thin. Perhaps I’m too old. Though not as old as some of the washed-up Rod Stewart and Lisa Minnelli impersonators.