Tag: Spanish with English subtitles

Official Competition

Rated: MOfficial Competition

Directed by: Gastón Duprat & Mariano Cohn

Written by: Andrés Duprat, Gastón Duprat & Mariano Cohn

Starring: Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas & Oscar Martínez.

Viewed in Spanish with English subtitles.

‘What a wanker.’

It’s Humberto’s (José Luis Gómez) 80th birthday.  His life summed up in the presents laid out before him: a massage chair, a Virgin Mary under a glass dome, a rifle set in its casing.  A painting of a sad clown.

He’s a millionaire who feels like he has money but no prestige.

He wants to be remembered, differently.

He decides he wants to build a bridge.  Or a movie.  Yes, fund a movie.  A good one.  Only the best.

Enter award winning director, Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz).

Humberto buys the rights of a Nobel Prize winning novel to base this, only-the-best movie on, and having failed to read it, he asks Lola what it’s about.

She explains its about a rivalry between two brothers.  She has the two actors in mind to build on that rivalry for the film:

Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez): a teacher, an academic, an actor of integrity and respect.

And, Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas): popular, multi-award winning and arriving at rehearsal in a Lamborghini pashing his latest.

Let the butting of egos begin.

Official Competition is a movie about making a movie, most of the set in an expansive, minimalist house as Lola pulls the actors into the minds of their characters.

Kinda sounds boring, but it’s brilliant watching the techniques used to get the ego’s of these two actors into a place so Lola gets the tone she needs for each scene.

‘I want the truth,’ she demands.

Have to say, Penélope Cruz as Lola looks amazing as the sensitive, brilliant and dedicated director, Lola.  She is the wild, red curly-haired, sensitive and very aware puppeteer.

The film is about how very different these two actors she’s chosen to play the parts as brothers, are; to then realise, they’re as vain as each other.

Iván at one point is seen to be accepting a pretend Academy Award in the mirror, after denying he’d ever lower himself to the popularist farce, and of course not speaking anything but Spanish, to announce in his pretend speech that he was only attending the ceremony to formally reject the award.

Meanwhile, Lola looks incredulously at an online video of Félix making a plea to save the pink dolphin.

I just kept bursting out laughing.

It’s hilarious, all set to Lola’s tricks, using big screens in the background of monologues, rocks suspended over their heads during rehearsal, the sound of kissing while surrounded by microphones, a meat grinder used to signify transition but also showing the edge of Lola’s destruction.

Even Iván’s wife, Violeta (Pilar Castro) an academic hipster who’s written a children’s book is shown as vain as Iván shares a new piece of discordant music where she comments on the brilliance of the tribal drumming.  But no, that’s just next door banging on the wall, again.

This is one of those quietly clever films that seems like it’s not about much but then gives you a tickle when the cleverness of a layer reveals itself.

The whole film’s about ego so in the end the film finishes with a forced clever ending with an ego all of its own.

Great acting, unique and clever story and a good laugh.

The Mole Agent

Rated: GThe Mole Agent

Directed by: Maite Alberdi

Produced by: Marcela Santibáñez

Executive Producer: Christopher Clements, Carolyn Hepburn, Julie Goldman

Featuring as Themselves: Sergio as the Spy, Romulo as the Private Detective, and the Residents of the Nursing Home: Berta “Bertita” Ureta, Marta Olivares, Petronila “Petita” Abarca, Rubira Olivares, Zoila González.

Spanish (Chilean) with English subtitles.

“Elderly man needed. Between 80-90 years old.”

Job: spying on old folks and staff in a nursing home for three months.

Well, to report back about target, Sophia Perez because her daughter is concerned that Sophia’s being mistreated.

It took me a moment to realise the film was a documentary as, The Mole Agent begins with this light-hearted tone of jazzy soundtrack featuring classic moments of eighty-plus-year-olds being taught to work mobile phones; the successful candidate, 83-year-old Sergio being shown how to call via Facetime, leave voicemail messages via WhatsApp to make his, ‘Deliveries’ or pass information to private investigator Romulo to then translate back to the client.

The older generation tying to figure mobile phones always leads to some amusing moments.

But Sergio gets it, kinda.

It was when the cameras filming the documentary were shown via a mobile camera as Sergio’s being taught to use the device that the film turns from comedy spy-movie to documentary.

Then we see Sergio enter the nursing home, one resident seen holding her walker with one hand, a hose to water the garden in the other and I realise this is a different kind of documentary.

Sergio begins his mission:

‘Did you meet the new man?’ One resident asks another.

Sergio causes quite a stir.  He’s lucid.  And a gentleman.

Director Maite Alberdi states that the team got authorisation from the nursing home with the understanding that the film was a documentary about the elderly (not following an unknown ‘spy’ reporting back to a private detective everyday while being filmed by the crew).

The production team were given permission to film for three months with 300 hours of material captured, plus the material filmed by Sergio himself using a spy pen – very clever, if not a little obvious.  Particularly when other residents try to take the pen from his shirt pocket.

So the cameras are seen in the film and explained to the residents with the line about a documentary about the elderly so when new resident Sergio enters, it’s only natural the crew would take interest in the most recent addition.

At one point a resident sitting out in the sun points out to another gran, ‘They’re supposed to be filming a movie, not spying on us.’

But Sergio manages to continue his investigation about the treatment of Mrs Perez without getting busted.

There are many sweet moments: the thieving Marta with her quick hands, always asking when her mother’s going to take her home; there’s the poet Petita reciting her beautiful thoughts, the random resident cats and the surprise birthday celebrations.

There’s Berta who has a crush on Sergio saying she would consider giving God her virginity.  Through her future husband (Sergio).

But realising the film is documentary and not a spy comedy, although there are some funny moments, makes the film that much sadder.

The Mole Agent is like a homage to the isolated and lonely elderly, left and abandoned by their families.

And the depth of sadness felt by these old folks as they try to buck-up and be positive but are really grieving about their lives lost in sacrifice to children who never visit them…  It’s a bit of a heart-breaker.

Over time, instead of spying on the old folks, Sergio befriends them.  And they absolutely love him for it: ‘Thank-you for the company you give us,’ says Zoila.

Even the camera crew were missed, ‘and we missed them!’  The crew reports.

The audience is shown how life is lived in these homes, getting to see behind the closed doors as the cameras become part of the landscape.

The Mole Agent is sweet and very sad; completely different to what I was expecting and truly unique.

When Alberdi was asked, “What do you hope audiences take away and learn from The Mole Agent?”

Alberdi replies, “I would like people who watch this movie to leave the movie theatre wanting to call their parents or grandparents. It is an invitation to look within yourself and ask what you can do better.”

Pain and Glory (Dolor Y Gloria)

Rated: MA15+Pain and Glory

Written and Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar

Produced by: Agustín Almodóvar

Executive Producer: Esther García

Original score: Alberto Iglesias

Director of photography: José Luis Alcaine

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Nora Navas, Julieta Serrano, César Vicente, Asier Flores, Penélope Cruz.

Spanish with English subtitles.

‘If you don’t write or film, what do you do?’

‘Live, I guess.’

Pain and Glory is a drama, a life story shown in monologue and intimate conversation.

Salvador Mallo’s (Antonio Banderas) life is filled with patterns and colours, water and tiles, suspension and scars.

The story of the film circles his life as he remembers teaching a young builder to read and write when he was growing up in the catacombs with his mother, as he remembers his career writing and making films and the past disagreements with friend and actor, Alberto (Asier Etxeandia) whom he hasn’t seen since the premiere of his most successful film thirty-two years ago.

He remembers as the pain of his ailments take pieces from him, his back pain, his migraines, his choking – he can’t create anymore, but he can remember.

This is a film that bleeds the present and the past so the trigger of smoking heroin with the man described, ‘You’re the opposite side of that text,’ Salvador falls, taking him back to the time when he experienced his first desire, his first love, the escape from the ‘bad ring’ of Madrid, to get away from the temptations of addiction to Havana and the Ivory Coast.

But sometimes, love isn’t enough.

He has no regrets.  To recover from his past, he writes the story.

So the past and present are intertwined like his writing translated into this film.

Director and writer, Pedro Almodóvar has taken pieces from his own life, translating them into the film like the character Salvador makes films about his past.

The hair, the setting of the apartment the same as the man himself, Pedro.

Antonio Banderas has just won the Cannes 2019 Best Actor Award (the film selected to compete for the Palme d’Or) for his performance here.  And I can see why.  He just seems to get better with age.  His humble sincerity a warmth felt through the screen.  He’s endearing.

And there’s more to the film than a character study as the scenes cut from the bright sun shining through the exposed roof of the catacomb house, to the animation of red broken lines like the branches of a tree exploding in the drawn lines of a brain, a contrast to the quiet suffering of a man embarrassed of his pain, refusing to allow his housekeeper to tie his laces, wearing loafers, catching taxis, lying in the dark.

But there are no complaints as he loses himself in memory.

This isn’t a sad film, more a poignant tale of all the darkness and light in life – sad and happy and true.

The overriding feeling I got from this film was grateful: life can be cruel, but it can also be kind.

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