SCN: Whew! Nazis, Commies, doctors and weird kids combine for history and horror in the Juan Carlos Medina shocker, PAINLESS

Yikes -- movies don't come much weirder than PAINLESS, from director and co-writer (with Luiso Berdejo) Juan Carols Medina, during the viewing of which you are bound to ask yourself, "How in hell did they come up with a story like this?!" Jumping off from a dark night in the woods, as a little girl plays with fire in a most extraor-dinary way, to a group of Spanish children who somehow are unable to feel any physical pain (the official medical term, I believe, is congenital analgesia), the movie jumps back in forth in time between present-day Spain and that country in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, as it slowly connects past and present, coming up with a story that, for horror aficionados -- as unusual and well-executed as it is, this shocking film has too-high a creep quotient to recommend to general film-goers -- is a don't-miss movie.

If the person who feels no pain brings to immediate mind that beefy blond step-brother of the heroine of the Steig Larsson novels/
movies, forget about him. The guy's a typical fictional creation/cliche compared to the kids here, one of them in particular who grows up to become a character called Berkano (played by the fabulous -- in all meanings of that word -- Tómas Lemarquis, of Noi the albino). In this, his first full-length film, Senor Medina, shown above, has played around with myth and history in a manner that can only make something like the Joseph Campbell stuff seem paltry. To compare Painless to the usual scary movie is like trying to equate a Grimm fairy tale with a Barbie story.

Despite the awful nature of what's on view, initially Medina weaves his tapestry of past and present together in a lovely, graceful way: at one moment a finger moves through a pool of blood (see photo at bottom) on a prison floor, scooping out a line that turns into a present day road along which our hero, David, is driving in his car.

David is played by another oft-seen star at Spanish Cinema Now, the versatile Àlex Brendemühl (above). After accidentally causing a car accident that killed his pregnant fiance (their prematurely born child was saved), this successful doctor suddenly finds himself on quest to discover his roots, save his own life and thus ensure that his son will have at least one living parent.

This will take our "hero" on a journey that dates back to the 1930s, and what he learns is something no one should have to find out about himself. As this bizarre tale unfolds, we see the absolute horror of the Spanish Civil War once again -- this time from both sides but with the inhuman hatred of the liberal left by the conservative right given new and even further disgusting meaning.

While the plot is certainly convoluted and extremely dark, it is never inaccessible. And though the strange children of the movie feel no pain, the viewer certainly will. This movie is up there with a classic like The Nameless (streamable on Netflix) in terms of bringing Spanish history, personality, religion and culture together with the horror film to create something that you don't want to watch but from which you simply cannot turn away. It's one lollapalooza of a movie -- for certain tastes only.  

Painless plays its last screening at the Walter Reade this evening, Saturday, December 15, at 9:45 pm as part of Spanish Cinema Now. Click here for tickets....

SCN: Paula Ortiz's CHRYSALIS--three women in three periods of Spanish history

A most intriguing exercise in connections -- social, political, economic and especially amorous and by extension, I think, feminist -- CHRYSALIS, the first full-length film from writer/director Paula Ortiz keeps us alert and concerned thanks to some excellent performances and stunning cinematography (the latter is via Miguel Ángel Amoedo, of Fermat's Room and a lot of Spanish TV), the former from the actresses who play the three women:   SCN regular Maribel Verdú (below), Leticia Dolera (further below and recently seen as the bride in [REC] 3!) and Luisa Gavasa (shown in the penultimate photo and new to me, as she's done mostly Spanish TV).

Other than via theme(s), there is no connection between these women or their stories, as the time frame moves from 1941 in a near-desert-like community during wartime, back to 1923 in a beautiful, secluded mountain village, and then far ahead to 1975 in the big city as the long fascist dictatorship was drawing to a close. The women's stories are unusual enough to keep us interested -- two engage in full-out love relationships that come to sad ends, while the third holds back, waiting for that someone special (movies play a big part in her life).

Ortiz moves us back and forth between the tales, holding us pretty firmly in her grasp, thanks not only to the strength of the three actresses but literally to every cast member, well-chosen and delivering exactly what is needed.

If the emotional high point, for me, at least, comes at a moment (shown above) -- in which superb visual technique combines with storytelling, character and my own anti-Franco feelings -- yours may occur elsewhere. Whatever the filmmaker loses by offering us three stories in which none of the character connect on the personal level, she gains back via the beauty of her images, the strength of the performances and the quiet state of wonder (in both meanings of the word) in which she leaves us pondering.

The original Spanish title of the film is De tu ventana a la mía, which I believe translates as From Your Window to Mine, and is a much better -- more personal and connective --- name for this film, even if less marquee-friendly. Chrysalis is too overused a title, though a butterfly does appear in one story, with its life cycle discussed at some length.

The film will be shown one more time -- this afternoon, Sunday, December 9, at 4pm -- at the Walter Reade theater -- and Ms Ortiz, shown at right, will appear in-person for a post-screening Q&A.

Spanish Cinema Now continues through December 16. See the entire program by clicking the link above.

SCN: Memory & locale -- Spanish Civil War lives on in Alberto Morais' film THE WAVES; plus a short interview with the filmmaker

Spanish Cinema Now, 2011 edition, appears to be a year for learning lots of new things about the Spanish Civil War. From Ispansi! we discovered the thousands of Republican children sent to Russia as the war was being lost to theirfamilies; from 23-F (which I'll cover tomorrow), we see the attempted military coup during the post-Franco period to unseat the democratically elected government; and now, with Alberto Morais' quiet and serious film THE WAVES (Las Olas) we learn of the concentration camp that held so many Spaniards in Nazi-occupied France during WWII. We don't see the actual camp, except in a oddly endearing photograph, but we experience it via the mind and spirit of the 80-year-old man Miguel, as well as his best friend Fernando, both of whom were prisoners there.

With this, his first narrative feature, Señor Morais (his earlier documentary is titled A Place in the Cinema) seems determined to make us experience the importance of place -- location -- as well as that of memory, in movies. (For more on this, see the short filmmaker interview below.) To this end he unspools his movie very slowly. We spend a lot of time with Miguel, played by the fine old Spanish actor Carlos Álvarez-Nóvoa (shown below, from Scandalous, Elsa & Fred), recently widowed and now puttering about, spending time with family and finally vowing to go back to that camp on the beach where he was imprisoned. Finally, despite one difficulty after another, he does it.

This movie take some getting used to; in fact, for me, it took more discipline than usual to force my attention onto the screen and Miguel.  There is a lot of coming and going, especially driving in automobiles, and not much dialog to fill in the blanks. Eventually, however, if you stick with The Waves, you will, I believe, becomes attuned to the slow pace and the lack of story/events. You may, as Morais might like, become immersed in "place" rather than "pace."

Along the way, Miguel meets Blanca (the always fine Laia Marull, below, right, from Black Bread, Pretextos and Take My Eyes) and the movie picks up a bit. Then even more so, as Fernando enters the picture and we get a dose of history (Fernando does not want to go back to the location of the camp.) Those waves (of memory, really) crest and finally break when Miguel makes it to France and connects with someone who also remembers. The meeting is quiet, short and resolutely unsentimental. But I dare you not to feel something strong and memorable by the close of this "reunion/reconciliation."

The Waves screens twice only at the Walter Reade Theater: tomorrow, Sunday, December 11, at 9:15 pm and Monday, December 19, at 3:30 pm.

***************

We meet with Alberto Morais (below) immediately following the press conference for Spanish Cinema Now at the New York chapter of Instituo Cervantes. In the following dialog, TrustMovies appears in boldface and Señor Morais in standard type.

I liked your film, but it took me awhile to get into it because it is slow – with a lot of driving and a lot of silence. That takes a certain discipline in the viewer. What was interesting to me, as an older man – I’m 70 and your character is 80. He clearly went thru what was a horrible time in the concentration camp – so horrible that his friend won’t even go back to it now -- so this was yet another look at the Spanish Civil War. But in a very different way: As memory, and as coming to terms with the event much later.

The point is that in Spain, most of the films that approach the Civil War or the people that came off of the country, they do this as melodrama, and they put the geography and history in the background.

Sort of Like Ispansi!?

Perhaps. I did not see it.



It’s wonderful, but it is melodramatic.

It is a more typical representation.

Right. And yours is not.

No. Because you cannot approach history if you cannot approach geography as a character.

Geography as a character? Wow!

Yes, that is the point of my film. This is something I have learned from the films of Ingmar Bergman and Theo Angelopoulos from Greece. They put history in the first term and that is what makes it a little slow, the film, but you have to see the places, the locations, because they are the main characters. And also, because Miguel is 80 years old, and his movements are slow. He is slow. And this is his first trip anywhere in 60 years, since the war.

His first trip ever?

Yes. Because when he came to Valencia, he married, and he has lived a gray life.

Gray? Gray, as in… boring, fuzzy, plain, tiresome... obscure?

Yes. (He points to a place on the wall of the room that is sort of... gray.)

He was happy with that life?

No. Not at all. He feels that he is in a country that is not his country. Without nothing. And in a time that you feel is not your time.

Wasn’t life under Franco gray. Life in general, for many of the people. Particularly those who either fought, or would have fought against Franco.

Yes, but most of the films about Franco-ism post-Francoism, where events are very dramatic and costume-filled, the are like theatre.

Oh, you mean theatrical. Overdone.

Yes, and when a filmmaker does that, it is very difficult to see this gray life of these gray people of this gray country. So that is the point of the film. They are in a present that is not the present. So they cannot deal with their past injuries. These are not open injuries. There are no scars. But they are injuries nonetheless.

This is a kind of post-traumatic stress. But not the normal kind we hear of now in Irag where you were bombed by and IED. These are other kinds of post-traumatic stress. The kind you cannot see.

For example, people who came from Vietnam here came back, and said, I was in hell. But nobody cares about their reality. So they are disapppointed and become aggressive. But in Spain there were 40 years of this happening.

Forty years of gray!

What I tried to say before, we have problems in Spain, and the filmmakers, too, because of these, and today you can see the repercussions from all this. Films that had to be done years ago are being done now.

Is this sort of like the films of Almodóvar becoming such a strong reaction against what had come before?

Almodóvar is the main case of a country that comes from tatters but does not want to review its past. Turning out a kind of film that says this is the life of joy, as if we were in New York! But Madrid in the 80s was not like New York in the 80s.

No, it was just recently post-Franco, and in fact, there was that attempted coup in what, 1980? The one that the movie 23-F explores.

The first real elections were in 1978. And this coup d’etat was in 1981.

But it didn’t work.

It didn’t work because they were a very Spanish type of doing it – very hilarious. But very serious, too. And very grave.

If someone like Franco has been in charge, it probably would have worked.

Of course, of course.

So after this attempted coup, then democracy really settled in?

One year later were the general elections.

(At this point we’re interrupted by the publicist, 

who asks us to wrap things up.)

I am so glad to have spoken with you, just to hear about the “gray” Spain!

Yes, gray, but there is a point in the film that is the only light. The Blanca character: She brings some light. And played by Laila Marrul. This character made real choices. And so she can bring some light. So this it the story of a gray person who goes to a place where he knows he cannot deal with the past.

But he knows he must do it.

Exactly. He must do it, to maybe close it.

When he gets to France, there is more light in the film, too. Literally and metaphorically. Because it is a different place, a different country, so there should be.

Exactly.

  (And then, unfortunately, our time is up.)

THE LAST CIRCUS -- Álex de la Iglesia's latest surprise -- opens in New York City

With THE LAST CIRCUS (Balada triste de trompeta), writer/
director Álex de la Iglesia is working at the absolute peak of his powers so far. This is not to say that the guy doesn't have a ways yet to go: As usual, his movie's over the top -- it has to be, given what is going on -- but it is also, as usual, too long. Yet it is so compelling, thought-provoking, riveting and entertaining that you're likely to forgive it its trespasses right on the spot.

When I first saw this film -- at last year's Spanish Cinema Now series via the Film Society of Lincoln Center, I was impressed. Seeing it again last week, it seemed every bit as strong. Maybe stronger. As a metaphor for a put-upon (if not downright masochistic) Spain under Franco, it is disturbingly provocative. From the first scene, in the late 1930s, when soldiers (above) break into a circus as it is performing and insist that the male performers take up immediate arms, we feel "anti-military."  But these are not Franco's troops; they're the army of the Republic: the good guys. Not so fast, de la Iglesia is telling us, and by the time his movie reaches its fevered climax, just about everybody has egg -- not to mention blood -- on his face.

This engaging filmmaker/provocateur (shown at left) -- Day of the Beast, Perdita Durango (aka Dance With the Devil), La Comunidad, Dying of Laughter, The Perfect Crime -- enjoys forcing us to confront some dearly-held notions that's he has turned upside down (here it's our take on the Spanish Civil War) and then played out (and out and out: there's that length problem again) until we cry uncle. His penultimate film, The Oxford Murders (well worth seeing and now streaming via Netflix) seems at first oddball for de la Iglesias because it is so cerebral. But even in its intelligence, it manages to go over the top (and into too-lengthy territory) before hurtling us to the brink of brilliance and insanity.

The Last Circus begins with a scene of enormous shock quotient, done with amazing skill: You'll hardly be able to take a breath for the fast few minutes, so fast and furious do events, bullets and bodies fly. (Machete waving has rarely seemed such fun.) From here, we skip ahead in time and are introduced to three characters who remain with us throughout the film, growing, changing and keeping our mouths agape.

This threesome is played by Carlos Areces (shown above), Antonio de la Torre (at right, center -- from last year's SCN film Gordos and many more of our favorite Spanish movies) and Caroline Bang (below, swinging). I don't think I am giving away the store when I say that you can view them, respec-tively, as the Repub-lican left (passive variety, for awhile), the Fascist right, and Spain herself. That's if you want to do the "symbols" thing, and as The Last Circus is definitely an anti-war movie, go ahead. Yet it is also such an eye-poppingly wonderful piece of visual art and a humdinger of a story, feel free to consider those symbols at a later date.

I could go on (and on -- just like de la Iglesias) about this terrific, visual knock-out of a movie, but as Magnolia Pictures has picked it up for U.S. distribution and is releasing it today, I'll just say: See it. In New York City, it has opened at the Cinema Village. To see other playdates, cities and theaters across the country, simply click here.

SCN: Helena Taberna's THE GOOD NEWS opens Spanish fest with history & feeling

The combination of Fascism and the Catholic Church that runs through Helena Taberna's rich and moving film THE GOOD NEWS (La Buena nueva) should make the blood of any Progressive run cold. And yet her story is full of natural beauty and kindness, set in a time -- the Spanish Civil War -- when neither had much currency.

The film tells the story -- based on real people and events that took place during this time -- of a young, though not particularly naive priest, sent off to take over the parish in a small and lovely mountain town with a decidedly leftist population. Because Franco's forces are making headway through Spain, things will soon change, and the priest (a star-making performance from Unax Ugalde, at left) will find himself trying to uphold genuine Christian teachings and values, while protecting the citizenry from, first, the invading army and finally a Church that folds all too easily into the power-hungry, you're-with-us-or-against-us mindset of Franco's increasingly popular fascism.

The look of the film, above, is wonderfully right, without pushing its visuals or spending too much time drenching us in nostalgia. Everything -- from the haircuts to the church candles, the clothes and the uniforms -- seems correct. Except the peculiar combination of church vestments and rifles, shown below, which is precisely the point. I didn't realize that Jesus of Nazareth was so pro-military. If the Italian Church under Mussolini was cowardly and craven, the Spanish Church under Franco was all that and more: arrogant, brutish and nasty. The movie makes clear that, for the clergy, even more than for the general populace, there was no middle ground.

Our hero, played with a fine combination of amusement and rigor by Ugalde, is drawn to a young widow (the lovely Bárbara Goenaga, shown below) but Ms Taberna is too smart to turn this into soap opera. It's clear where her heart and mind are but she takes her priest through treacherous territory with his eyes open and his brain alert. Though his parishioners are more atheists than believers, they'll have their children "christened" in a heartbeat, once the Fascists gain control, and our man is happy to perform the christening, while reminding his higher-ups that Jesus tended to forgive the sinner and care for the poor.

Speaking to our own time, The Good News makes it clear how dangerous is a country in which Church and State combine. And while this particular atheist is no lover of religious sermon, I must admit how happy I was to hear again Jesus' Beatitudes from his Sermon of on the Mount, spoken by our priest as he leads the women of the town in a memorial service for their husbands, father and sons -- all executed by Franco's army, in collusion with those right-leaning townspeople -- and the Church. In a time when fundamentalist Christianity preaches hatred and divisiveness along with greater material gain, and our most popular and successful religious film celebrates torture porn, how wonderful to hear a sermon of kindness and caring again, which, after all, was what Jesus actually taught. (Mel Gibson should only see this movie.) Lest we forget, Ms Taberna (pictured below, flanked by her two stars), with pain and grace, allows us to remember.

The Good News open this years Spanish Cinema Now fest and plays at the Walter Reade Theater this Friday, December 4, at 2:15; Sunday, December 6, at 3; and Friday, December 11, at 8:50. Click here for schedule and ticket information.