Reviews

An aged woman who needs to fulfill a sexual fantasy she has writes an advertisement in a contact magazine. When a younger man answers the advertisement, they start up a sexual relationship (pornographic as she calls it, because that's what pornography is, just sex and nothing else) based on the fulfillment of her fantasy. However, the initially sexual relationship becomes more complicated when they become sentimentally involved and start liking each other.

"Une liaison pornographique" is an honest and pure movie about love, sex and human relations, which lacks all the usual paraphernalia, ornament and romanticism. I liked specially the initial scene, when the camera shows an unfocused view of the crowd, with faces that come and go, never staying too much time. This scene made me think of how modern life is in the cities, where we seem to be bees in a giant beehive, simply passing through life without any purpose at all. From this scene on the film shows how difficult it is to maintain a relationship based on something so natural as sex between two adult, responsible and free people. The film also shows how feelings may interfere and complicate human relationships, and how easy it is to misunderstand each other's feelings.

Although the title may suggest otherwise, the film advances mainly through the conversations of the two starring characters previously to the sexual encounters that take place in a little hotel's room. Sex is shown only when it is strictly necessary and in a delicate way (the spectators never get to know what her fantasy is, since the camera lingers through the hotel's corridors during the act), so people looking for explicit sex will be deceived. The performance of Nathalie Baye, and Sergi Lopez is convincing as two ordinary people with sexual and emotional needs, succeeding in involucrating the spectator in their private universe. In conclusion, a movie that is worth seeing.

Betty is a waitress in a little town's bar who is married to a car seller, but who is secretly in love with a TV series actor who plays a surgeon. The night of her birthday she is at home watching a recorded chapter of her favourite series, when two assassins murder her husband in their own house because of a drug affair. The shock causes her to confuse fantasy and reality, making her believe she is a real nurse and that the hospital displayed in the TV series is real. Therefore she abandons her husband (or at least that is what she believes) and goes to California to meet the surgeon (whom she believes to have been her boyfriend once). Meanwhile the two assassins are looking for her and the drug her husband had stolen them. In spite of being quite a tragical story, all the movie is related in a tone of comedy and from a kind point of view, that makes the spectator feel fine once the movie is over, having spent a good time watching it.

"The road home" is the road a dead professor's coffin must go through from the hospital in town, to the little lost village in the chinese mountains where he had been teaching during 40 years, and where he will be buried. It is also the story of the return of the teacher's universitary son to his native village after an absence of several years. But, above all, the film shows the beautiful and unconventional love story that the dead teacher and a girl from the village, whom he married later, live. The story is remembered by the son as their parents told him, and is shown in colour, contrasting with the images of the present time, which are displayed in black and white. This choice helps to highlight the love story and reinforce it in comparison with the grey present (the funeral takes place in the middle of the winter), showing how vivid the past may still be when remembering crucial times in our lives many years after they have occurred. The story is filmed with a lot of sensitivity and great attention paid to the details, the actors are wonderful (Ziyi Zhang is simply lovely), the photography is marvellous, displaying grandiose autumn and winter landscapes, and the music contributes to create a nostalgic atmosphere. If you are expecting a reivindicative movie by Yimou, you will certainly be disappointed, but if you want to see an honest and beautiful love story, and learn a little about the habits and traditions of the chinese culture, this movie is definitely a must see.

Anything may happen. Anything. You may love somebody so much that just the fear of losing him/her makes you spoil it all, and end up losing him/her. You may wake up besides someone you hadn't even imagined you could know, and look at yourself now! It is as if somebody gave you one of those puzzles with pieces of a picture of Madrid, the photograph of some ponies, or the Niagara Falls. And the pieces are supposed to match, but they don't...

Ann and Don are two people living in a little lost village in North America that are going through a major crisis in their lives. Don Henderson (Andrew McCarthy) has seemingly finished recently a traumatic relationship due to his own errors. He is temporarily working for his father selling houses, while he tries to help depressed people at night working in the Hope Line just to avoid facing his problems (can someone who doesn't withstand himself help other people?). Ann (Lily Taylor) works in a photography store, and does not have a very clear view of what she intends to do with her life. Her boyfriend Bob phones her from Prague to tell her that their relationship is over, presumably because he has met another girl. It is in that moment when Ann notices that she didn't really loved Bob before, but she has started loving him now, when he phoned to end up their relationship. In that moment she starts wondering about things she should have told him and never did, and how stupid she was in not telling him the most important things and occulting minor unimportant things.

"Things I never told you" is the story of Ann and Don, but also of the rest of depressive, solitary and lost characters that come and go through the film. It is a melancholic and sorrowful movie about people who can't find love, or found and lost it (the excellent music and photography do help a lot to remark these features) dedicated to all the sensitive and solitary souls around the world. However, in spite of dealing with depressive people, it is not a depressive film. It is a film that makes you wonder whether you are doing the right thing with your life, whether you are sharing it with the right people, or you will find someone appropriate sometime. It is a film that makes you feel that you should be more honest with the people you appreciate, and that you should live the good moments intensely, because nobody knows how long they are going to last. So, don't wait until tomorrow to say or do those important things you are always delaying, because it may be too late, and things not said or done are usually the most important.

"Atilano, presidente" is the last film of a trilogy displaying Spain through the backdoor in a tone of comedy. The first two were devoted to bullfighting and soccer, and this one deals with politics. The main point of the film is simple: anyone can be the president of the government. A politic party that defends the interests of the main banks in the country needs a candidate for the approaching elections, and Atilano Bermejo, a funeral worker, seems the least worst candidate. From this starting point things start to complicate and escape beyond control of the candidate and their masters. A good and simple idea, and a decent plot (though too complex for a comedy and ilogical some times). Manuel Manquiña is great as candidate Atilano, and Ramon Barea and Laura Conejero are also fine as the two professional politics. The film has several remarkable scenes too, such as the one in the market. Unfortunately, the film does not turn out to be funny (except occasionally), so people just trying to spend a good time watching a light comedy should look elsewhere.