4 reviews
This is a mediocre Berlanga film , though full of sourness and deep critical . Spanish coral film dealing with a merciless denounce to hypocrite society located at a coastal village , being regularly directed by veteran Berlanga and full of a high level of profanities , piggy humor , nudism , including critical in malevolent intention . It packs an absurd script written by the same director , and collaboration of his son Jorge ; furthermore , Joaquín Oristrell collaborated on the screenplay for over a month . The frustration and vital weariness of Michel Assantes (Michael Piccoli) , a notorious surgeon in Paris, is unbearable : he has a spouse (Mapi Galán) whom he does not love , a son who is foreign to him and friends whom he despises but, at the same time, he is incapable of taking his own life . One day , he buys a bike from a cyclist who was to make the Paris-Timbuktu route and sets out to make the trip . He arrives in Calabuch where he meets curious characters , as three weird brothers : Trini (Concha Velasco) , Gaby (Javier Gurruchaga) , Encarna (Amparo Soler Leal) , a nudist mechanic named Boronat (Juan Diego) , a rare priest (Santiago Segura) , among others .
In this average flick there is especially busy comedy , ironical humor , frantic pace , joy , amusing gags , rowdy satire , noisy hustle and social critical . Furthermore , it contains certain confusion , bustle and relies heavily in exaggerated mayhem ; being in anyway clearly an inferior film , and far from Berlanga's masterpieces. But the main problem is that if you are foreigner you will have to know well the Spanish society to understand the double-senses . Shot in long , complex shots : ¨Planos Secuencia¨, with a lot of bizarre roles talking , shouting and walking . We can find big fun , caricatures and mirrors of the Spanish society of the 2000s , concerning the national reality in ironical style . It belongs to the last period in Berlanga career characterized by commercial and comical films , adding a point of view as acid as surrealist . It turned out to be a middling picture plenty of diverting situations as well as black humor and social hypocrisy . Here Berlanga returns to ¨Cabaluch¨/Peñiscola , again with a foreign man (there was Edmund Gwenn as an atomic scientific and here Michael Piccoli as a prestigious surgeon who escapes from Paris to Timbuktu becomes for him the Promised Land) and ¨El Jueves Milagro¨ with the peculiar Saint called St. Dimas , however both films were beset by difficulties with the censors caused by a relentless critical to Catholic religion . The movie displays a Spanish star-studded such as : Concha Velasco who lobbied heavily for her role on the movie, as she wanted to work with Berlanga for years , Amparo Soler Leal (Berlanga's also regular) , Fedra Lorente , Antonio Resines , Guillermo Montesinos , and , of course , a brief acting of the forgotten stage actor : Luis Escobar who steals the show .
Final movie of Luis García Berlanga is pretty mediocre , here very far from the tenderness carried out in previous works , including a bitter , pessimistic mirror on the Spanish society by that time . He shows his skill for edition , realizing long shots with crowd who moves easily . The long Berlanga's career began during the 50s when filmed several polemic movies , all of them were beset by difficulties with the censors caused by real critical to social stratum such as ¨Bienvenido Mister Marshall¨ (1953) , a very good film which tended not to be very well received by the censor for its acidity and considered to be one of the best Spanish films of the history , including a strong portrait of society and plenty of sharpness . His next joint venture was ¨Los Jueves, Milagro¨ (1957), it delayed for several years before its eventual release . Subsequently , he made ¨Placido¨ (1961) , this is the film debut for the great producer Alfredo Matas and received an Oscar nomination in 1963 , being well-received at the International Festivals , reviewing the useless charity . Later on , Berlanga made one of his best films: ¨El Verdugo¨ (1963), one of the undisputed masterpieces and fundamental in filmography of Berlanga and shot at the height of his creativity, in a period cultural difficult, where the enormous censorship of the political regime, exacerbated the ingenuity and imagination of the scriptwriters . He continued filming other interesting pictures as in 1973 he went to Paris to begin filming ¨Grandeur nature¨ with Michael Piccoli , another problematic film , focusing this time on the fetishism of a man who falls in love with a doll . Several years later , after Franco's death and one time finished the Franquist dictatorship , Berlanga along with his regular screenwriter Azcona carry out the realization a known trilogy about the social Spanish situation , concerning on the peculiar aristocratic family of the Marquis of Leguineche . He filmed a trilogy comprising ¨La Escopeta Nacional¨ (1978), ¨Patrimonio Nacional¨ (1981) dealing with monarchy restoration . Its big success originated another sequel , ¨Nacional III¨ (1982), about the power rising of Socialists and where he clarified the evident disorders in the Spanish upper , middle-class upon being confronted with a new political status quo , realizing a sour denounce of the Spanish society . He shot a peculiar film titled ¨La Vaquilla¨ (1985) set in the Spanish Civil War , resulting to be the first time dealing with this convulsive period in comedy style . Following the same themes, he went on filming coral films such as ¨Moros and Cristianos¨ and ¨Todos a Carcel¨ (1993) that won three Goya Awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Sound .
In this average flick there is especially busy comedy , ironical humor , frantic pace , joy , amusing gags , rowdy satire , noisy hustle and social critical . Furthermore , it contains certain confusion , bustle and relies heavily in exaggerated mayhem ; being in anyway clearly an inferior film , and far from Berlanga's masterpieces. But the main problem is that if you are foreigner you will have to know well the Spanish society to understand the double-senses . Shot in long , complex shots : ¨Planos Secuencia¨, with a lot of bizarre roles talking , shouting and walking . We can find big fun , caricatures and mirrors of the Spanish society of the 2000s , concerning the national reality in ironical style . It belongs to the last period in Berlanga career characterized by commercial and comical films , adding a point of view as acid as surrealist . It turned out to be a middling picture plenty of diverting situations as well as black humor and social hypocrisy . Here Berlanga returns to ¨Cabaluch¨/Peñiscola , again with a foreign man (there was Edmund Gwenn as an atomic scientific and here Michael Piccoli as a prestigious surgeon who escapes from Paris to Timbuktu becomes for him the Promised Land) and ¨El Jueves Milagro¨ with the peculiar Saint called St. Dimas , however both films were beset by difficulties with the censors caused by a relentless critical to Catholic religion . The movie displays a Spanish star-studded such as : Concha Velasco who lobbied heavily for her role on the movie, as she wanted to work with Berlanga for years , Amparo Soler Leal (Berlanga's also regular) , Fedra Lorente , Antonio Resines , Guillermo Montesinos , and , of course , a brief acting of the forgotten stage actor : Luis Escobar who steals the show .
Final movie of Luis García Berlanga is pretty mediocre , here very far from the tenderness carried out in previous works , including a bitter , pessimistic mirror on the Spanish society by that time . He shows his skill for edition , realizing long shots with crowd who moves easily . The long Berlanga's career began during the 50s when filmed several polemic movies , all of them were beset by difficulties with the censors caused by real critical to social stratum such as ¨Bienvenido Mister Marshall¨ (1953) , a very good film which tended not to be very well received by the censor for its acidity and considered to be one of the best Spanish films of the history , including a strong portrait of society and plenty of sharpness . His next joint venture was ¨Los Jueves, Milagro¨ (1957), it delayed for several years before its eventual release . Subsequently , he made ¨Placido¨ (1961) , this is the film debut for the great producer Alfredo Matas and received an Oscar nomination in 1963 , being well-received at the International Festivals , reviewing the useless charity . Later on , Berlanga made one of his best films: ¨El Verdugo¨ (1963), one of the undisputed masterpieces and fundamental in filmography of Berlanga and shot at the height of his creativity, in a period cultural difficult, where the enormous censorship of the political regime, exacerbated the ingenuity and imagination of the scriptwriters . He continued filming other interesting pictures as in 1973 he went to Paris to begin filming ¨Grandeur nature¨ with Michael Piccoli , another problematic film , focusing this time on the fetishism of a man who falls in love with a doll . Several years later , after Franco's death and one time finished the Franquist dictatorship , Berlanga along with his regular screenwriter Azcona carry out the realization a known trilogy about the social Spanish situation , concerning on the peculiar aristocratic family of the Marquis of Leguineche . He filmed a trilogy comprising ¨La Escopeta Nacional¨ (1978), ¨Patrimonio Nacional¨ (1981) dealing with monarchy restoration . Its big success originated another sequel , ¨Nacional III¨ (1982), about the power rising of Socialists and where he clarified the evident disorders in the Spanish upper , middle-class upon being confronted with a new political status quo , realizing a sour denounce of the Spanish society . He shot a peculiar film titled ¨La Vaquilla¨ (1985) set in the Spanish Civil War , resulting to be the first time dealing with this convulsive period in comedy style . Following the same themes, he went on filming coral films such as ¨Moros and Cristianos¨ and ¨Todos a Carcel¨ (1993) that won three Goya Awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Sound .
This movie is more than a chain of punch lines guided by some anarchist spirit. Yes, it certainly does some heavy criticism on almost every Spanish institution, but it also criticizes the rather absurd passion with which several societies (or countries if you want) built on the whole Y2K fever . The movie takes place precisely around that date and it provides a clever, acid, and up to a certain extent prophetic portray of the whole hysteria around the Y2K (it was filmed in 1999). The rather obsessive references to the corruption phenomenon in Spain and Europe are exaggerated but they reflect on different levels the way Spain found itself after all the corruption scandals of the last years of Felipe González as Prime Minister (Presidente de Gobierno). Yes, the jokes, the punch lines are all there. Some of them are rather offensive or plainly unbelievable, like the scene where the rebel nun fight s to "consecrate" a giant Paella, as if Catholics ever consecrate food (we can bless it, but we will hardly ever think about consecrating it, much less about "consecrating" it with holy water), but it depicts nicely the unfair position of nuns within the Church when compared to priests. The movie is fun and it provides a good insight on the many paradoxes of contemporary Spain and, for that purpose, of any contemporary society.
An aging Parisian beauty surgeon, who cannot stand it, or himself, any more, decides to go to Tombuctu, to disappear from civilized life. He is lucky and goes to Calabuch instead. This Mediterranean village created in 1956 by director Luis Garcia Berlanga has been revamped with spare parts from the Freedonia of Groucho March and brought up to date. One gets to know a large bunch of dissimilar characters who take life easy. Sex, food, and personal relations are the major pursuits. The story, if there is any, is a succession of visual and verbal punch lines which follow one another so closely that one does not have the time to recover. No component of society escapes this satire unscathed, but the worst ridicule is heaped upon servants of Church and State. If you feel injured by some of the blows, you are probably a normal person, but if you do not enjoy most of them, your case is serious, not even Calabuch can save you.