El baile del pato (1989) Poster

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8/10
Great comedy
DrFred19 August 1999
Very funny film about what happens to Carlos (Antonio Resines) when his wife decides to leave him and start a new life... and they can't because they always meet in the strangest places. Excellent acting, a lot of funny situations... but maybe to 'weird' for a comedy: there are a lot of drugs and 'rare' sexual behaviour in this film. So do not show this to your children.

(Like I did!)
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8/10
One of my favourite Spanish farces
alserrano27 April 2022
This is a weird one, because it ends up being an epitome of that subgenre known as "Madrid urban comedy" which was short lived, always leaded by Antonio Resines, and absolutely unknown outside of Spain and, to be honest, outside of the 80s. What was a Madrid comedy? Basically comedies that adapted the New York romcom or screwball to the Spanish capital. With more or less success.

Is this one good? I cannot say that it is, I cannot say that you will like it. There is a wild mood swing from the sophisticated comedy with camera movements and the crass one and the chilldish one. As said in the other review (which reads familiar - maybe it was me some decades ago) there are many jokes about drug use - the whole movie is about getting in a spiral of parties, after parties, work and back to the parties, which makes reality become blurry. It is surprisingly well structured and with scenes that are pure cinematic bliss, mixed with others that are the lowest of the lowbrow humour. A casting full of gifted comedians (some of which you will recognise from Almodovar movies), references to many clubs in Madrid that have been closed long ago and activities you cannot longer do (as ending up in a flamenco bar as an after party) and in general to a scene of not much sleep and a lot of drug use that has kind of disappeared.

Good luck on finding subtitles for this one though.
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