SCN: My coverage closes with Pedro Pérez Rosado's Western Sahara-themed WILAYA

Putting the lie (at least partially) to the documentary, Sons of the Clouds -- the movie that recently closed this year's Spanish Cinema Now -- the new narrative film from Pedro Pérez Rosado titled WILAYA takes place in either the Algerian or the Western Saharan desert (I am not sure which) and is the name of, not one of the movie's characters, as I had imagined, but of the type of long-term detention camp in which thousands of the Western Sahara people now reside. This is due to the take-over by Morocco of their land that was earlier colonized by Spain -- which eventually pulled out and left this little country, sparsely populated by nomadic people, to the devices of nearby and more powerful nations.

While Sons of the Clouds gives us a good historical perspective on what happened to the Western Sahara and why, Wilaya shows us an example of one group of these refugees in the center of which is a young woman adopted and raised by a Spanish family in Spain from age ten, who comes back to her distressed "roots" (these detention camps have existed for over a quarter century now) and tries to "fit in" again with an extended family to whose culture she feels almost no connection.

This is a terrible situation to be in, and the filmmaker (picture above, at right, with two of his cast members) reveals it to us slowly and carefully. We don't know that much about (I believe her name is) Fatimetu, but the lovely neophyte actress, Nadhira Mohamed (shown below), who plays her is certainly beautiful to observe. The way in which this movie seems to contradict its documentary "sister" is in how we see life lived in this camp. Sons of the Clouds tells us that the Western Saharan people (the Sahrawis) are remarkably Democratic in their life style and culture. Now, while I realize that everything is indeed relative, the culture shown here still seems oppressively male-dominated -- though, at least, females can drive and speak their mind without ending up dead. Religion is still strong here, however, but it does not seem to have the ability to regulate life and death. (This is probably one of the unintentional gifts to the Sahrawis from their Spanish colonizers; another is their ability to speak Spanish.)

With fine cinematography by the talented Óscar Durán (whom Jaime Rosales uses consistently), the movie offers the desert as a breathtaking backdrop for some interesting actors and actresses who breathe life into characters that, though we don't learn all that much about them, still manage to resonate and make us care. The kind and caring crippled young woman who is Fatimetu's sister (or maybe cousin) is also brought to fine life, as is another cousin, a younger man (well, really an older boy) named Said, who quickly falls in love with the new arrival and tries his best to woo her.

Said is played with low-key but smoldering sexuality that is something to behold, and we learn about his story, too. Missing his father who, years before left for Spain, Said's task in life -- in addition to winning his girl -- is to find the man again. There are also present Said's mother, an uncle and several other characters we meet and learn about, but the lion's share of the plot is given over to Fatimetu, Said and the crippled girl (shown above, left, and who can, it turns out, drive a car quite well).

The cultural differences between a character raised in Spain and another raised in these camps is handled with humor and some subtlety, and the performances of the entire cast are believable and specific. Our "Spanish" girl in particular, next to her Sahrawi counterparts, seems both selfish and far too entitled, but as the movie progresses, she begins to adapt. As do the other characters to her and her unusual abilities.

By the end of this quietly touching little film, a small but wonderful and moving rapprochement has been reached, and you leave the film noticeably more joyful than you entered it. The movie makes a fine double feature with Sons of the Clouds, and the pair should provide a real education about the Western Sahara for many of us.

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Wilaya is yet another of the SCN movies that one wishes might have a chance to be seen again here in the U.S. This is probably unlikely, however. Which is the reason, for some of you who may wonder why I spend so much time on these Spanish films, that TrustMovies devotes a large chunk of his output to covering this annual series. Not only are the films shown eminently worthwhile (for the most part: Each series may contain a clinker or two, but the great majority are absolutely worth one's time), most of them will not be seen again on these shores. Therefore -- and since television critics ignore the series completely, and the print critics are lately doing the same -- that leaves us web bloggers with the job of making certain interested readers know what was seen here and why it was worthwhile.

Another good reason: These 20 films are among the best that Spain had to offer over the past year, so of course they are likely to make for worthwhile viewing. As to most -- well, many -- of the filmmakers, these Spaniards have poured their heart and soul into their films; at the very least, they should be able to know what someone over here in the U.S.A. felt about their creations. They deserve this, and we -- though most of us don't even realize it -- deserve to see their films. So thank you, Film Society of Lincoln Center and the about-to-retire Richard Peña, for gifting us with this series for the past 21 years. I dearly hope that the new Director of Programming, Year-Round, Robert Koehler, will continue the tradition.

And now, a final apology: I missed four of this year's programs (I usually see them all) -- due to the inability to make the film's public screenings, and/or to the fact that DVD screeners of these film were unavailable to critics. So, please accept my apology, Marçal Forés director and co-writer of Animals; Gabriel Velázquez, director and co-writer of Iceberg; Eduard Cortés, director and co-writer of Winning Streak; and all the many filmmakers involved in this year's assemblage of new Spanish shorts, Shortmetraje. I will hope to see all of these someday, but, as noted above, due to the lack of distribution available, my chances are probably slim.

SCN: In his powerful THE SLEEPING VOICE, Benito Zambrano probes the post-Civil War

When Americans hear about movies set in women's prisons, we tend to imagine campy exploitation films. Spaniards, I suspect, have a bit of a different reaction -- at least those who still remember the Spanish Civil War and the years immediately afterward, which unfortunately stretched into decades. THE SLEEPING VOICE (La voz dormida), a new film from the talented writer/director Benito Zambrano (Habana Blues and Solas), co-adapted by Ignacio del Moral from the novel by the late Dulce Chacón, begins with an alarming scene set in a women's prison in 1940, in which one large group of women are taken out to the courtyard to be executed by firing squad. One of them has difficulty finding the strength to stand and walk, and what she says about leaving her family will tear you apart. What's left of you after this scene, the remainder of the movie will make mincemeat.

Not that The Sleeping Voz is especially violent or bloody. Señor Zambrano, shown at right, does what he must to make the necessary points, but because so much of his film takes place inside this prison, in which he situates not only his women but us viewers, the movie forces us to experience what it is like to suffer without -- or at least with very little-- hope and to be nearly powerless. As we soon see, one's only power here is to refuse: to say "no" to the Eucharist in church -- seeing as how the Catholic Church in Spain at this time capitulated almost entirely to the Franco/fascist side -- or to scream aloud your most precious belief in that moment before you are shot.

TrustMovies has seen many, many histories of Spain during this period -- several are usually part of each year's Spanish Cinema Now series, with this year no exception -- but few have affected him as deeply as this new film. The reason, he believes, has to do with the fact that all we see here is from a woman's point of view, showing us how everything -- every single thing from life and limb to one's own offspring -- is no longer your own. As one person tells another, "In the new Spain, even your dead don't belong to you."

The story concerns two sisters, Tensi and Pepita (played by Inma Cuesta and María León, shown at far and near left, respectively). Pepita has come to Madrid from Cordoba to find work  so that she can visit and help Tensi, who is pregnant and in prison. Think of Franco's Spain as something with a level of evil somewhere between our McCarthy-era blacklisting witch hunts and what Hitler's Germany did to Europe's Jews. In post-Civil War Spain, the cruelty, torture and death meted out to Communists and supposed Commie sympathizers affected husbands, wives and entire families.

When the movie focuses on the imprisoned Tensi (above), it is at its darkest, and Ms Cuesta is truly riveting. This actress possesses such a grand combination of ferocity and deep feeling that she simply commands the screen at all times.

When its gaze comes to rest on Pepita, at right, who has taken employment in the home of a wealthy bourgeois family, the film opens up to embrace something other than prison life and thus frees us, at least momentarily, from our cell. Zambrano treads a wise path between the two women and their locations, which keeps us from giving in to total despair. Ms León proves a smart and feisty performer, lending her character strength that, early on, she had no idea she possessed. (This actress -- as versatile as she is good -- is just about unrecognizable from the role of the daughter she played in SCN's Carmina or Blow Up.)

The men on hand, including the very attractive TV actor Marc Clotet, above, are either those working for the return of the Republic or Franco's minions. Yet even here, and regarding both men and women, the filmmakers allow for human frailty. While some of the people we meet, including the military brass, prison guards, priests and nuns, are black indeed, others fall somewhere along the usual bell curve of mankind's character.

This film is a perfect memorial to the horrors and the institutionalized barbarity of the Franco era, the likes of which we've rarely seen in this particular manner until now. It played twice at Spanish Cinema Now, but I hope that there will be some further distribution here in the U.S. This is a slice of foreign history of which American audiences should find more than a little frightening, interesting and worthwhile.

SCN closes as Álvaro Longoria's SONS OF THE CLOUDS unveils Moroccan human rights' abuse against the Western Sahara

The original Spanish-language title of the new documentary, SONS OF THE CLOUDS, carries a subtitle: Hijos de las nubes, la última colonia, which translates as The Ultimate Colony. Once again, Colonialism, which many of us we tend to think of as dead, would be better remembered as "the gift that keeps on giving." If you know as little as did TrustMovies about the history of this small, not-quite-country bordered by Morocco, Algeria, Maruitania and the Atlantic Ocean, the movie will be an eye-opener.

As explained by the film's writer/director Álvaro Longoria (below) and narrator/co-producer Javier Bardem, the history of the place and people is pretty fascinating, involving as it does colonization by Spain, which eventually let the country go, after which incursions were made into it by Morocco, which were promptly rebuffed by the Sahrawi people (and their rag-tag army, the Polisario), but to little avail. Morocco, more powerful, continues to control the area.

One of the most interesting points the movie makes involves which countries support independence for Western Sahara -- which is, according to the movie-makers, a surprisingly Democratic society in which women's rights, among other important things, are fully recognized -- and which countries come down on the side of the oppressor, Morocco. Most of the Arab states, of course, favor Moroccan control (due as much as anything, to their Islamic faith, I believe; none of them want to see real democracy in the area). To their ever-lasting shame (as though they could ever feel anything like shame) so do France and the United States of America. Even though most of the United Nations favors the Sahrawis, these two countries, permanent members of the UN Security Council, have veto power, which they are more than willing to use.

Morocco appears to be taking its cues from the behavior of Israel, moving thousands of "settlers" into lands which originally belonged to the Sahrawi's. Unfortunately, because the Sahrawis were originally a nomadic people, big cities and permanent abodes were not something that developed in the Western Sahara. (The life-style of Nomads and Gypsies would seem to be something that the modern world will not or cannot countenance.)

Add to this the many human rights abuses -- rape, torture, imprisonment -- that run rampant but are not much heard about outside northwestern Africa, and it is these things, along with the thousands of displaced Sahrawis who lives in camps in terrible conditions, that apparently grabbed Señor Bardem with such force when he first encountered them and learned of their plight while he was making a PR appearance at a film festival there.

Perhaps because the movie-makers did not get particularly up-close and personal with the Sahrawis themselves, much of the film is spent tagging along with Bardem and crew as they try to reach the Moroccans and question them about all this (as you might expect, this does not happen); going to the UN and making a short, impassioned speech; and speaking at length with France via one old fellow who makes pretty shameful, non-seeing excuses.

Longoria, Bardem (above) and their crew have done a fine job of bringing all this to our attention, and while the film is relatively one-sided, as many of these documentaries about injustice against particular persons and/or entire peoples often are -- especially in situations in which most of the power lies in the hands of the abusers -- the information marshaled here is worth hearing and seeing and will introduce you to yet another terrible situation in our world that needs addressing. (My own estimation of Morocco just took a huge dive, and any interest I might have had in visiting that country is gone.) The Sahrawis, at this point, have put up with 27 years of this injustice; it's time for change.

In addition to its showing as part of Spanish Cinema Now, Sons of the Clouds -- the title comes from the fact that, for centuries, this nomadic people followed the clouds that held the desert's most precious possession: water -- is available now on DVD and from all major Digital Outlets via GoDigital -- including iTunes and Vimeo -- for download sale and/or rental.

All photos are from the film itself, 

except that of Señor Longoria, 

which is by Mark Renders, courtesy of Getty Images Europe.

SCN: CARMINA OR BLOW UP--Paco León's unique celebration of a con-artist mother

TrustMovies needed to find a film among the recent Spanish Cinema Now batch to which he could take a very elderly, long-time friend who detests violent and/or hard-to-follow movies. From the press description of CARMINA OR BLOW UP -- "picaresque comedy," "love letter to mother" -- it sounded like it might do the trick. Yikes! But my friend was a good sport, and actually found the movie so unusual that she was relatively fascinated. She used to go to Spain yearly on business, staying in the better hotels and dining out in nice restaurants. "But I never," she explained with some surprise, "met anyone like this!"

Nor have I. Here we are on one of the lower economic rungs of the Spain's 99 per cent, with a woman who is said to be the director's mother. Or maybe an actress playing his mother, or maybe his mother playing a character somewhat like his mother -- for this is one of those new hybrids, a mish-mash of documentary and/or narrative, that combines, well, whatever works. Gloriously, almost everything here does.

Starting with the lead actress, a bundle of energy and quirks who goes by the name of Carmina Barrios, the movie marshals an array of smart, specific, bizarre performers and situations that bounce off each other and build to a hilarious and somehow just conclusion -- in the face of the fact that Carmina herself is a world-class scam artist who just wants to take care of herself, her family and friends.

These include the folk pictured above and below, beginning with her daughter, María León, presumably the sister of the filmmaker, a certain Paco León, who is shown above with his sis and "mom," and below with only "mom."

To call this guy a born filmmaker would seem too obvious; he's that and more -- if this near-sui generis movie is any indication. He and his cast grab us from the outset, particularly the zoftig leading lady who possesses such energy and certainty that she figuratively, sometimes literally, mows down all obstacles in her quest to provide sustenance for a confirmation/family reunion (below).

These would include her insurance adjuster, a bill collector, even some juvenile delinquents who steal the family truck, not to mention us poor viewers who are but putty in her very strong hands. The plot, if you can quite call it that, takes us back about a month from the movie's socko beginning, where Carmina sits at her kitchen table and simply fills us in on some history.

Then we move ahead in increments, as we learn more about the several robberies that have occurred of late at the family-owned bar. Seems Carmina and her husband, below, are having trouble paying their bills. How they finally surmount this becomes pretty much the gist of the film, as Señor León uses everything from fun visuals (above) to crazy characters performed to a tee in order to create this amazing and vital world.

Special attention is given to the hams (below) that are needed to feed the party. How Carmina gets these -- and ends up paying her bills -- is the best joke of them all.

Running only 70 minutes, all of them put to good use,  León's movie is short, swift and lively as hell. It played but once at this year's Spanish Cinema Now, but it will surely be seen again -- if only as a kind of calling card announcing, "Hey, movie world, I've arrived." Has he ever!

SCN goes mainstream: Caldera, Garrido & Valor's sweet, goofy GHOST GRADUATION

What is it about the afterlife that attracts so many movie-makers (not to mention audiences)? I mean, really -- we know nothing about it, but that doesn't stop us from imagining. Yes, of course: It's a way to cheat death. Even if the whole idea is complete nonsense we can still bask in the possibility of some sort of continuation once we're finished. I'm musing on this subject because two of the sweetest films I've seen in quite a while are both ghost-related: Ferzan Ozpetek's wonderful Magnificent Presence (click and scroll down), from this year's Open Roads festival, and now the less meaty, but charming and delightful GHOST GRADUATION (Promoción fantasma) which had its one and only screening last Friday night as part of Spanish Cinema Now.

In this alternately funny, cute, gross and romantic comedy -- written by Cristóbal Garrido and Adolfo Valor, and directed by Javier Ruiz Caldera (shown at right) -- a school teacher who, all his life, appears to have been able to see and relate to ghosts, is placed in a high school where five of these "beings" -- students who were killed in a fire 20 years ago --  are wreaking havoc on teachers and staff. (They seem to leave the "live" students alone. Professional courtesy, I guess.)

Turns out the ghosts have unfinished business to take care of, which means, in the teacher's mind at least, graduation. The ghosts, however, are not so sure.

In the leading role of the teacher, one of our favorite actors and a staple at SCN, Raúl Arévalo, does his usual terrific job without seeming to break a sweat. He's charming and funny and sexy and helpless, winning us over in a flash.

Arévalo is supported by a fine cast that includes Aura Garrido (above, and just seen at SCN in The Body) as a live student who falls in love with one of the ghosts and Alexandra Jiménez (below, right) as the principal of the school, who falls in love with Arévalo.

Also on view is the very funny Carlos Areces (below, of The Last Circus and last year's Extraterrestrial), as what appears to exist in Spain as something like the PTA president.

I make no grand claims for this very mainstream Spanish movie. Yet, taken on its own terms, it is quite enjoyable. Compared to what most of our Hollywood people might do with the same subject, Ghost Graduation comes off as a surprisingly sweet and generous movie.

The film played only once at this year's SCN, but because its opening frames sported the Fox International logo, I suspect there is a chance that we'll be able to see it again over here on DVD. Let's hope so, as it'll make a lot of people smile.

SCN: With THE BODY, his slick & efficient mystery, Oriol Paulo raises a few shivers

Spanish writer/
director Oriol Paulo was co-writer of the juicy 2010 Spanish Cinema Now treat Julia's Eyes, directed by a real filmmaker, Guillem Morales. Señor Paulo, whose second film as a director is THE BODY (El Cuerpo), possesses, at this point in his career at least, no such skills. His movie is slick and efficient as an all-too typical wtf-is-happening mystery/thriller, but it is so incredibly manipulative in order to keep its slickness and efficiency going that it began to bore TrustMovies before the midway point. By the time this relatively new filmmaker, shown below, reaches the explain-it-all finale (in which you will not have heard so much expositions spring from the mouth of one character in a single, long, uninterrupted rattle since last year's Thin Ice), you may be yawning big-time.

As I have pointed out before, we moviegoers love to be manipulated, but the problem with the kind of manipulation that moves like clockwork and in which all events and characters must conform to this clockwork is that it bears almost no relationship to life as we know it -- where a slight surprise or a bit of the unexpec-ted occasionally intrude. Consequen-tly, all the manipu-lation here quickly begins to seem like the work of some puppet-master, out of sight but all too present and controlling.

The story involves a body that has disappeared from the local morgue. It belonged to an uber-successful career-woman (played in flashback by that gorgeous staple of Spanish cinema, Belén Rueda, shown above) who, as we very soon learn, was bumped off by her husband at the behest of his younger and very attractive girlfriend. (We learn this almost immediately so this info is no spoiler.)

Ms Rueda is, as usual, so good that she manages to take her characterization into the realm of everything from feminism to aging, while creating a rich portrait of entitlement and sleaze. The rest of the primary players -- José Coronado (as the chief investi-gator, shown at bottom of post), Hugo Silva (as the husband, above) and Aura Garrido (as the girlfriend, below) -- are everything you'd want, although what you really want is that they might have a better story into which they could sink their ample acting chops.

The Body is fun enough -- if all you care about is trying to figure out a mystery, the plot of which has been manipulated to a fare-thee-well. At times the movie may suggest a kind of Diabolique for the 21st Century, in which neither story nor characters prove interesting and deep enough to matter. The film is finally a kind of exercise, allowing the filmmaker to stretch and bend genre conventions to see what he can come up with. That's great, but next time give us something really involving.

The film, and in fact, the entire Spanish Cinema Now series has concluded for this year. I'll keep posting on the films I've seen (all but four of the programs in the series) until I have covered the final five. 

SCN: Old-age gets the animated treatment in Ignacio Ferreras' moving WRINKLES

WRINKLES, a new Spanish animated movie that makes its debut at Spanish Cinema Now today, Sunday, December 16, at 2pm, is based on a prize-winning graphic novel by Paco Roca, about a retired bank executive whose Alzheimer's becomes too much for his son's family to handle, and so he is shipped off to a nursing facility. Yes, this is not your everyday, kid-friendly animation tale. (Together with Consuming Spirits, which just opened this week, these two films may constitute, not a trend -- that would take three -- but at least an alternative.)

As directed by Ignacio Ferreras, shown at left, the movie has a simply terrific beginning -- taking place in a bank as a loan is being negotiated -- which then pulls you up short. The animation here is simple, old-fashioned and easy to watch, if not particularly distinguished in any way. There are some cute, funny, sweet touches every so often that keep you alert, but what pulls you in and holds you are the subject, the story and the characters of the residents of this home, brought to relatively specific and pretty sorrowful life by Roca, Ferrares and the animation and writing teams.

The ex-banker, above, to whom his roommate refers as "Rocke-feller," is proper, kindly and losing it slowly, while the roommate (below) is a "main chance" kind of guy who thinks nothing of conning the other residents out of their money ("They won't remember" is his excuse) but still takes good care of his new friend.

There is also the totally out-of-it Modesto, and his wife -- who still loves him above all else and cares for him as though he is still fully conscious -- and another, very proper old woman, who when the pair make a break for it, shown below, decides to join them.

There are a few more people of interest, and a staff who are generally portrayed as being as caring and kindly as possible -- without, it is clear, having much idea what these old folk might be experiencing and/or feeling about it all.

There are some lovely and moving moments (above and below) when the present gives way to memory and the past, and although the movie is sentimental, it does not shy away from nor try to disguise the darkness at the center of this situation. It does offer that roommate the chance to redeem himself, which he takes -- which may not be believable but gives the ending an "up" note.

And so, if you find, as did I, a tear or two falling as you watch, well, you're entitled. Wrinkles takes on the children who place their parents into an environment like this. It not judgmental: Caring for an Alzheimer's patient is no easy task but, then, neither is a group-home environment an easy place to be consigned to.

Wrinkles may just be getting a U.S. release, for I noted in the SCN program a thank you to GKIDS for allowing this screening. I hope so, for the movie certainly has significance worldwide. It plays at SCN once only: today, Sunday, December 16, at 2pm at the Walter Reade. Click here for tickets.