Lali Espinet, tragic heroine of the 'S' years: "El Pico" 1 & 2 [Spain 1983, 1984]

Those were heady days in Spain - the late 70's and early 80's - the economy was booming, the country was busy catching up on lost time, and newly won liberties were enthusiastically celebrated, which allowed hitherto hidden film-talents to blossom. In parallel to the 'mainstream' scene that included directors like Victor Erice, Eloy de la Iglesia, Pedro Almodóvar, and Fernando Trueba, a different category of films emerged - the Spanish equivalent for the European soft-core cinema of the era - they were simply called Classified 'S'.

Lali Espinet:
The beautiful young actress Lali Espinet, better known by her industry name, Andrea Albani, was one of the leading starlets in classified 'S' films. And since I won't be writing about any of those films here, I'll give a brief summary of a couple of mainstream films that Ms. Espinet appeared in; films where the character she portrays also echoed her own addiction to drugs in real-life. "El Pico 2" was the last film she made before her untimely death ten years later (rumoured, due to complications from AIDS).

Eloy de la Iglesia:
The two films, both "El Pico" and "El Pico 2" were directed by Eloy de la Iglesia, a strident gay director who was known for his neo-realist style social commentaries, often centred around urban youth living on the fringes of society. While Spain was booming, he chose to focus on those who were left out, living under the bridge, struggling to make it - the delinquents, the homosexuals, the thieves and misfits. Misuse of drugs, religion, and politics often feature prominently in his films. Like the characters in El Pico, Iglesia too went through a long period of drug addiction, but he did manage to kick the habit towards the end of his life. The same could not be said of the lead actor in these two films - José Luis Manzano died at only twenty eight, due to a suspected drug overdose.

 

El Pico [1983]

Eloy de la Iglesia's 1983 film "El Pico" [Eng. Title: The Needle] may not be as accomplished as some of his earlier films, but it did rather well commercially despite its grim depiction of drug abuse among the middle classes of the city of Bilbao. Paco (José Luis Manzano) - son of a Commander of the Civil Guard (Jose Manuel Cervino), and Urko (Javier Garcia) - son of a ruling party senator (Luis Iriondo) are close college friends, and together, hang out with young Argentinian prostitute Betty (Lali Espinet) for drugs and sex. To feed his habit, Paco used to make money by prostituting himself, but has since moved on to selling drugs through the city's main dealer. He wants to become his own boss though, a move that'll land the boys in trouble. Paco and Urko's respective dads will also learn of their addiction and try what they can, in their own limited capacity, to support and cure them, to no avail. Paco and Urko end up killing the main dealer in order to rob his stash, and Urko dies of an overdose, leaving Paco with the prospect of being incarcerated by his own father. Recommended Viewing..!


 

The Nudity: Lali Espinet, Jose Luis Manzano, and Javier Garcia
Contains three scenes of nudity - the first is when Paco's father takes him to a brothel for initiating him into adulthood after he turns eighteen, unaware of the fact that the prostitute that Paco chooses is not exactly a new acquaintance - Betty is already Paco's drug and sex buddy. The second scene involves a threesome among Paco, Urko, and Betty. The third is when Betty entices Paco back into drugs after he'd been 'clean' for a few months.



 

El Pico 2 [1984]

The story begins from where it was left in the previous film. We see Paco serving time after his involvement in the drug dealer's murder is established by a journalist. In prison, he befriends an inmate nicknamed El Lehendakari (Jaume Valls) and they keep in touch even after Paco's release. Paco's dad takes him to Madrid, and hopefully away from destructive influences. But Betty too had moved to Madrid to ply her trade, and the two reconnect. When Lehendakari gets out of prison, the three decide to take up armed robbery as profession. Tragedy ensues, and towards the end of the film, Paco's life will have come full-circle - it is he who's now the main drug dealer, becoming an informant for the Police, and playing a dangerous game all over again...

 

The Nudity: Lali Espinet, Jose Luis Manzano, and Juame Valles



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Isabella Ferrari and others in "E la chiamano estate" [2012 Italy]

After a promising start to his career with films like La spettatore, Paolo Franchi decides to confront (and confound) audience and critics alike with his latest drama "E la chiamano estate" [Eng. Title: And They Call It Summer]. And not in a good way, I'm afraid to say...

Storyline:
The story concerns Dino (Jean-Marc Barr) and Anna (Isabella Ferrari) - a forty-something couple who are presumably deeply in love but have yet to make sexual congress, thanks largely to Dino. Not that he's suffering from any kind of dysfunction - far from it - he appears to have an above-average libido, and some advanced sexual tastes too. He's all right frequenting prostitutes and swingers-clubs, but wouldn't make love to Anna. He implores her to take a lover, and even goes to extraordinary lengths to track down Anna's former boyfriends (many of whom are now married), begging them to have sex with her, with his blessing. Anna meanwhile, almost masochistically, convinces herself that Dino loves her so deeply that he couldn't even contemplate penetrative sex.

The film is liberally sprinkled with imagery of sex and tries its darnedest to shock the audience. Now, I don't usually have a problem with that, provided they propel the screenplay. But unfortunately, Franchi seems to have lost himself along the way, and what we see is the visual equivalent of listening to someone repeat himself. I'm fine if the director thinks Dino's behaviour doesn't need to be justified, but there must at least be a purpose behind making the film. We are instead given some unconvincing reason for Dino's actions, and the non-existent characterisation leads us to not so much care about any of the protagonists. Even the presence of seasoned actors fail to redeem it, and coupled with mediocre technical features, the film has turned into a bit of a disaster.

Even Jean-Marc Barr suggests during an interview among the DVD extras, that the film is likely to fare better on DVD rather than the cinemas. Well, perhaps it'll gain cult-status down the line as Italian films often do, but then again, I wouldn't count on it, as this is one of the most atypical Italian films I'd seen of late. I have to admit that my only reason for watching the film was Isabella Ferrari. She doesn't disappoint - in fact, this is one of her more daring appearances in film, and perhaps that'll be the only reason one would want to have it in their collection.

Amazon.it DVD Link [PAL]



The Nudity: Isabella Ferrari, Caterina Valente, Eva Riccobono, Jean-Marc Barr, Filippo Nigro, Christian Burruano, and others
As suggested above, the film is replete with intermittent scenes of nudity and sex, some of which are explicit by today's standards. Isabella Ferrari in particular hits the charts following her notorious performance in the 2008 film Caos Calmo. ;)



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An ode to a baroque artist: "Tous les matins du monde" [1991 France]

To do full justice to Alain Corneau's beautiful masterpiece "Tous les matins du monde" [Eng. Title: All the Mornings of the World] would require a deeper understanding of classical music than I possess, but that still couldn't stop me from writing about it. Because this film will get to even the most untrained of ears through its sheer visual brilliance, and captivating performances from some of French cinema's finest.

Set in the seventeenth century, the film gives a fictional account of two of the famous musicians of their age - the renowned viola player Monsieur de Sainte Colombe (Jean-Pierre Marielle) and his erstwhile student and court musician Marin Marais (Guillaume, and later, Gérard Depardieu). It begins with a middle-aged Marais, suddenly overcome by remorse, pauses his lesson to recount his youth, and explains to his aristocratic students the essence of music, and with it the story of the person who taught him all he knew - Sainte Colombe.

We follow Sainte Colombe's story from the night his beloved wife dies while he's away performing at someone else's deathbed. Inconsolable, he retreats into his secluded cottage, almost ignoring his two young daughters. Madeleine (Anne Brochet), the eldest of the two, grows up to become an accomplished musician in her own right, and it is then that a young Marais, son of a shoemaker, approaches Sainte Colombe pleading to be taken as his pupil. He agrees after recognising Marais' natural ability, but they fall apart over Marais' desire for fame and fortune. Madeleine offers to teach Marais all that she knows without her father's knowledge, and soon they become lovers.

Having gained his knowledge, Marais joins the king's court as a royal musician, and stops visiting her. Unable to come to terms with their separation, Madeleine's health deteriorates, and as years pass by, descends into a long period of illness. Middle-aged, she requests the presence of the now famous Marais at her bedside to play for one last time the music he composed for her when they were still in love. He agrees, hoping to use the occasion to also obtain the manuscripts of Sainte Colombe during the visit, but instead, has to retreat in shame after playing for Madeleine. She dies shortly after, heartbroken. Marais and Sainte Colombe eventually make peace in one of the memorable passages of play, when Marais approaches Sainte Colombe with the humility of a student that he once was...

This sweetly painful melodrama is 'decorated', as if to compete with the flamboyance of the baroque period it represents, with spectacular performances by the three main cast - Jean-Pierre Marielle, Anne Brochet, and Gérard Depardieu. Together with the excellent production design and the cinematography, they lift this film to stratospheric heights rarely seen in biographical dramas. It rightfully won a clutch of César awards the following year, and without a doubt, is Highly Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon DVD Box-set [PAL]
This is an excellent value-for-money 4-DVD box set of an eclectic array of films featuring Gérard Depardieu - the collection from which this film was reviewed.



The Nudity: Anne Brochet and Guillaume Depardieu
There are four scenes of nudity in the film - when a young Marais walks past a bathing Madeleine, when they connect and fall in love, when Marais decides to leave, and finally when an older Marais visits Madeleine for one last time.



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Ennui of an upwardly mobile woman - "Era uma vez eu, Verônica" [2012 Brazil]

Marcelo Gomes is another talented writer-director from the north of Brazil, and while I'm still discovering his filmography, his latest film, "Era uma vez eu, Verônica" [Eng. Title: Once Upon a Time Was I, Veronica] showcases his credentials as a serious film maker in no uncertain manner. As the title suggests, his latest film is about a crisis of identity of the protagonist.

Storyline:
Essentially a series of intimate portraits of the protagonist - the film delves into the mind of a recently graduated and upwardly mobile young woman who'd just taken up job as a psychiatrist at a government hospital. For a daughter of a retired bank-employee, she has certainly moved up a notch in the social order. But while people in her shoes would be looking forward to a successful and promising future, Veronica (Hermila Guedes) is indifferent, even a touch disappointed at her achievements, whether with her career or her relationships. Even while remaining socially active, the only person she could relate to or even care about is her ailing father (W.J. Solha). A hopeless romantic, Veronica spurns offers of a deeper relationship from would-be suitors, preferring non-committal sexual encounters instead. Instead of trying to tell what becomes of Veronica, the film however examines her actions, without passing any judgements.

It is irrelevant whether or not Veronica 'discovers' herself in the end, or succeeds in her endeavours; it is the journey that matters, and Gomes establishes her existential crisis quite succinctly here. We could feel it in her indifference to Gustavo's (João Miguel) assertions of love, her empathy towards patients, as if to share with them her own anxieties, and not least in her own words as spoken to a tape recorder. She even feigns a relationship with Gustavo in order to please her ailing father, but who also knows her daughter only too well. "I, Veronica, the patient... uncertain about life, like everybody else", we hear her speaking to her audio diary.

A notable aspect of the film is its sumptuous cinematography - the early scenes of Veronica commuting through the city must have been inspired by Antonioni's existential masterpiece Il deserto rosso, with its imaginative use of architecture and abstract compositions. The rule books are thrown out the window, and we get to see and feel from the protagonist's viewpoint - the touch, the fleeting warmth, the coldness, the alienation and the internal angst. The film is also aided by its beautiful soundtrack and convincing performances by Ms. Guedes and Mr. Solha who play the daughter-father duo. With this film, Mr. Gomes has certainly whetted my appetite to explore his filmography, and if his earlier films turn out to be anything like this, we should be in for a treat. Needless to say, this meditative piece of cinema is Highly Recommended Viewing..!

DVD Purchase Link



The Nudity: Hermila Guedes, João Miguel, and others
The film is bookended with hedonistic scenes at a beach with various young men and women frolicking in gay abandon alongside Veronica and Gustavo in the nude. There are also additional inserts of scenes of a sexual nature intermittently throughout the film, and includes public nudity.



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Piso Porta [2012, Greece] - a film review

The Greek film "Piso Porta" [Eng. Title: Backdoor] may come across as a standard coming-of-age romantic drama, or a comedy even, but I suspect director Yorgos Tsemperopoulos had attempted something more ambitious. The tone in its narrative is less to do with nostalgia and more about circumspection, and is tinged with dark overtones reminiscent of symbolism as seen in communist-era Balkan films.

Storyline:
Set in 1966-67, we see young Dimitris' story unfold through a linear flashback with which his present fate intercuts during the course of the narrative. When his property-developer father dies unexpectedly, Dimitris (Konstandinos Papadimitriou) finds it difficult to come to terms with changes that happen around him, particularly the addition of a new member into his family - his father's lawyer Apostolos (Haris Sozos) who'd henceforth become his mother Fotini's (Alexandriani Sikelianou) new husband. Apostolos would also enter politics and be elected Mayor, and will switch loyalties as the country is taken over by a dictatorship. Dimitris sorely feels the need to become an independent adult, manifested by his preoccupation with sex and its experience thereof. His personal rebellion draws parallel with the resistance to the country's dictatorship, and he fumbles, makes mistakes, just as they do - it is plain to see that Dimitris is negotiating a particularly difficult puberty, just like the nation he's living in...

One could interpret the film as using Dimitris' coming-of-age as parable for a traumatic period in Greece's recent political history, acknowledging the fact that the dictatorship was a necessary evil for Greece maturing into a modern democracy. It's an ambitious proposal notwithstanding our views on the argument, but whether the film successfully interprets the message is a different matter. As a foreigner, I think the director could have developed the characters even further as there is a lot of ambiguity in their motives, and perhaps fleshing them out could have got the message across more forcefully, but perhaps this may also be the director's intention. It's a unique idea nevertheless, and for that very reason, Recommended Viewing..!

Ebay DVD Link [PAL]

 

The Nudity: Maria Solomou and Eleni Kokkidou
Dimitris' coming-of-age perhaps necessitates instances of nudity and sex, and it is provided by two fringe characters - the young and attractive housemaid Gina, and a mature prostitute, played by Maria Solomou and Eleni Kokkidou respectively.



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