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Presented in collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes,
the Spanish Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers (SGAE) and the Spanish Ministry of Culture (ICAA)
Since 1992, the Walter Reade has annually mounted rich surveys of contemporary Spanish cinema, charting the remarkable and continuing surge of innovative filmmaking on the Iberian peninsula. The Spanish film industry has had to grapple with diminishing domestic audiences for its movies, due to the increasing competition from Hollywood as well as the rise of TV and other alternative media. Happily, Spain's new generation of directors-along with distinguished members of the "old school"-now more than hold their own in the home market, and continue to create a body of work popular with audiences all over the world. Join us on December 5, the opening of our program of Spanish Cinema Now, one of the most consistently provocative of the European cinemas.
Note: All films are subtitled in English.
calendar
program notes and times
THE GOOD LIFE /
LA BUENA VIDA
David Trueba, 1996; 110 minutes
Tristan Romeo is on the verge of being fifteen, an auspicious age for a boy who dreams of being a great writer. In this comedy/drama, our precocious hero goes from being a protected schoolboy in Madrid, with loving parents, to a sudden orphan taken in by a grouchy granddad. Writing his life story, Tristan learns much about loneliness and grief, and even looks forward to that inevitable rite of passage in the arms of a beautiful woman. A tender yet powerful coming-of-age chronicle.
Friday, December 5: 2 and 6:15 pm
Sunday, December 7: 6 pm
PAJARICO
Carlos Saura, 1997; 100 minutes
Ten-year-old Manu is sent off to a town on the Mediterranean while his quarrelling parents settle their differences. There, he meets his aunts and uncles, a clan of lovable eccentrics with very different ways of making a living. One is a tailor, another is a doctor who specializes in iridology, and a third operates a bakery on the ground floor of the family house. But above all, there is his pretty cousin Fuensanta.... Before long, Manu is discovering-up close and personal-some of the complexities, traumas and joys of adult life. - Montreal Film Festival program
Friday, December 5: 4:15 pm
Saturday, December 6: 4 and 8:15 pm
FAMILY /
FAMILIA
Fernando Lenó, Spain, 1996; 97 minutes
Santiago gets up on his birthday to find his loving family assembled to wish him well and give him presents. Mother, wife, brother and sister-in-law, three kids-it seems a model clan, but in FAMILY, as we soon discover, all is not as it appears. When Santiago flies into a rage at his youngest son, demanding of the rest of his relations a better-looking and more convincing little boy, it's a signal that you are entering eerie existential territory where soap opera and cathartic drama literally coincide. Funny, moving and with just a touch of Buñuel, FAMILY is a deliciously unsettling exercise in acting out-for grown-ups.
Saturday, December 6: 6:15 pm
Sunday, December 7: 4 and 8 pm
ASALTAR LOS CIELOS /
STORM THE SKIES
José Luis López-Linares & Javier Rioyo,
Spain, 1996; 94 minutes
What is life like afterwards for the assassin of one of the great figures of history? Ramon Mercader, a man who dreamed of being a hero willing to "storm the skies," smashed an ice pick into the skull of an unsuspecting Leon Trotsky, founder of the Red Army and leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, forced to seek sanctuary in Mexico after the rise of Stalin. López-Linares's film represents an exhilarating example of investigative reporting, which exposes for the first time the true (Spanish) identity of Trotsky's killer and the manner in which he was recruited for this history-altering act.
Tuesday, December 9: 2 pm
Wednesday, December 10: 4 and 8 pm
THE MATCHMAKER /
LA CELESTINA
Gerardo Vera, 1997; 92 minutes
Based on a Spanish literary classic, THE MATCHMAKER is a story of love, passion, ambition and revenge set in Renaissance Spain. An unscrupulous servant enlists the help of a powerful sorceress-Celestina-when his master, the handsome young knight Calisto, finds his love for the beautiful Melibea unrequited. As in a tangled Shakespearean comedy, servants and lovers, knights and maidens are soon embroiled in plots and counterplots. Celestina's black magic can't stand up to the enchantments of the heart in this rich evocation of a fairy-tale time and place.
Tuesday, December 9: 4 pm
Wednesday, December 10: 2 and 6:15 pm
LOVING LOOK /
LA MIRADA LÍQUIDA
Rafael Monleon, 1996; 95 minutes
An elegant fortysomething, Antonio is bored with his life and wife Ana when Laura, a onetime lover, calls with the news that his close friend Thomas has died. The call, with its unsettling reminder of mortality, renews their rapport and Antonio is soon confiding his unhappiness with Ana, whose hunger for an inheritance makes her dream of death, natural or not, for her grandmother.
Thursday, December 11: 2 pm
Friday, December 12: 4:15 and 8:30 pm
MASTER NOBODY /
NIÑO NADIE
Jose Luis Borau, 1997; 95 minutes
During a speech by a philosopher at an awards ceremony, a physical education teacher becomes so worked up over what's being said that he soon abandons home and family in search of the Truth. Yet his goal seems more elusive than even he might have imagined. Borau, best known here for his marvelous 1975 Furtivos / Poachers, has created a playful philosophical fable that constantly shifts into new, unexpected places and situations.
Thursday, December 11: 4 pm
Friday, December 12: 2 and 6:15 pm
LOVE CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH /
EL AMOR PERJUDICA SERIAMENTE LA SALUD
Manuel Gomez Pereira, 1996; 120 minutes
This delightful jeu d'esprit reels through time to document the eternal encounters of lovers Santi and Diana,
bonded by an inextinguishable passion that persists through single and married life, from royal reception to (under) John Lennon's bed.
Saturday, December 13: 6:30 pm
Sunday, December 14: 8:15 pm
Monday, December 15: 2 pm
BLINDED /
A CIEGAS
David Calparsoro, 1997; 92 minutes
A razor-sharp drama set against the complex backdrop of terrorism and the Basque quest for independence. Marrubi dreams of getting out of the business of violence so that she can live peacefully with her young son. But when she refuses to execute a politican-coming face to face with his wife and baby-she becomes an outlaw, hunted by her erstwhile comrades. Daniel Caparsoro's third film is about impossible love and desperate survival, but most of all, it is a moving reflection on the senselessness of violence. - Toronto International Film Festival program
Saturday, December 13: 8:45 pm
Sunday, December 14: 6:30 pm
Monday, December 15: 4:15 pm
CHEVROLET
Javier Maqua, 1996; 98 minutes
A derelict 1959 Bel Air Chevrolet becomes both site of and catalyst for the complex social and business life in a sleazy neighborhood. In the imagined words of the car: "I've lived a lot...more than 600,000 miles of desert, snow, forest, city have been seen through my windows. My life has been filled with adventure: love, chases, laughs, accidents, all kinds of dreams. Then someone left me parked in this corner of a city, like an abandoned dog. Day in, day out, I've been used as shelter, bedroom, office, home and love nest, by fugitives, dealers, winos, homeless, and whores....I feel alive again!"
Tuesday, December 16: 2 pm
Wednesday, December 17: 4 pm
Thursday, December 18: 6:30 pm
COMANCHE TERRITORY /
TERRITORIO COMANCHE
Gerardo Herrero, 1997; 90 minutes
A successful TV journalist who has never been in a war zone before, Laura is totally unprepared for conditions in besieged Sarajevo-where news reporters look to make a name for themselves. Mikel and his cameraman Jose are deep-dyed in cynicism and the kind of no-nonsense professionalism that allows them to function in hell. Slowly, Laura also begins to harden; indifferent to slaughter, she begins to penetrate deep into "Comanche Territory," the most dangerous section of the city, in order to gather ever more horrific news.
Tuesday, December 16: 4 pm
Wednesday, December 17: 2 and 6:15 pm
THE DOG IN THE MANGER /
EL PERRO DEL HORTELANO
Pilar Miró 1995; 109 minutes
In this sumptuous period piece, Countess Belflor is madly in love with Teodoro, her secretary. Needless to say, social status stands in the way of consummation, but the countess is not about to allow the object of her desire to marry a young woman in her entourage. For his part, Teodoro wavers between the promise of passion, always just out of grasp, and the reality of love at hand. It takes a lowly servant, motivated by his own goals, to unravel this emotional contretemps.
Thursday, December 18: 2 and 9 pm
Friday, December 19: 4 and 8:15 pm
WOUND OF LIGHT /
LA HERIDA LUMINOSA
José Luis Garci, 1997; 100 minutes
In a provincial Spanish town, a cardiologist long out of love with his wife keeps up appearances by allowing no inkling of their estrangement-to their maids or to their friends. Problems arise when a new colleague enters Dr. Molinos's life: Julia awakens feelings he hasn't felt for many years, and he finds himself hungry for life once again. But how to overcome the obstacle of a wife who won't divorce? Therein lies the tale.... "Love. Love of the cinema, love of actors, love of directing. It's love, elemental and mysterious, that animates the entire picture." - Jose Luis Merino, La Farola, Madrid
Thursday, December 18: 4:15 pm
Friday, December 19: 2 and 6:15 pm
99.9
Agustí Villaronga, 1997; 102 minutes
Reminiscent of The X-Files, 99.9 is the story of Lara, a young woman in her early thirties, who hosts a radio program devoted to extraordinary phenomenons around Madrid. One night, she learns that an old friend has died under strange and mysterious circumstances in a cemetary in a small town. She suspects something more is behind his death and starts to investigate.
Saturday, December 20: 4 pm
Wednesday, December 24: 4:15 and 8:15 pm
BACKROADS /
CARRETERAS SECUNDARIAS
Emilio Martinez-Lazaro, 1997; 90 minutes
Set in 1974, BACKROADS follows a young man, Felipe, and his father as they travel along the Spanish coast in their battered Citröen. Yet every spot they visit seems out of season: beaches are deserted, hotels empty, prompting Felipe to question where his father is taking him-and why? Told with great sensitivity and offbeat patches of humor, BACKROADS conjures up a powerful portrait of a land in transition, of the excitement and terror of change.
Saturday, December 20: 6 pm
Sunday, December 21: 6:15 pm
Monday, December 22: 4:15 and 8:15 pm
MIDNIGHT BRIDE /
LA NOVIA DE MEDIANOCHE
Antonio Simón, 1997; 95 minutes
Based on a screenplay co-authored by Luis Buñuel and José Rubia Barcia, MIDNIGHT BRIDE resembles in tone and style some of Buñuel's remarkable Mexican films. An old, formerly powerful family lives in an isolated mansion on the Galician coast. One day a stranger arrives, and his very presence sets off a chain of events that causes all of the family's skeletons to come tumbling out of the closet. One can only imagine what Buñuel himself might have done with this somewhat campy, somewhat hysterical material-but Simón loads his film with visual wit and irrepressible charm.
Saturday, December 20: 8:15 pm
Sunday, December 21: 8:15 pm
Wednesday, December 24: 2 and 6:15
SHADOWS AND LIGHTS:
100 YEARS OF SPANISH CINEMA/
SOMBRA Y LUCES:
100 AÑOS DE CINE ESPAÑOL
Antonio Gimenez-Rico, 1996; 100 minutes
A rich survey of Spanish filmmaking from 1886 to the present, SHADOWS AND LIGHTS begins with After Twelve O'Clock Mass at the Pilar in Zaragoza and concludes with contemporary works that met success with home-grown and international critics and viewers alike. A remarkable mosaic of those images and sounds that comprise a century's worth of cinematic dreaming.
Sunday, December 21: 4 pm
Monday, December 22: 2 and 6:15 pm
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