Review: Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios / Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

The life of TV actress Pepa (Carmen Maura) is turned upside down when her lover, Iván (Fernando Guillén), leaves and avoids speaking to her. Before Pepa can sort out her life, she visited by a frantic Candela (María Barranco), who has found out that the men she has been staying with have been arrested as terrorists. Pepa also has to deal with a young couple, Carlos (Antonio Banderas) and Marisa (Rossy de Palma), who arrive at her apartment to rent it. What she doesn't know is that Carlos is Iván's son, and that his mother, Lucía (Julieta Serrano), has just been released from a mental hospital and plans to kill Iván for infidelity. When Marisa is knocked out by Pepa's spiked gazpacho, Carlos, unfaithful like his dad, starts to make out with Candela. Meanwhile, we discover that the absent Iván is leaving the country with his lawyer, Paulina (Kiti Manver).

In Pedro Almodóvar's breakthrough comedy, all the female characters share the same situation: they have been, are being (and will be?) betrayed by their men and are suspect to a nervous breakdown. Some, like Lucia, go mad, others, like Candela, have no idea what to do, while Pepa (a typical Almodóvar heroine) finds the inner strength to overcome her setback and to help others in the process.

The film's later scenes are foreshadowed by funny short clips near the beginning, such as in the condom advertisement that Candela acts in, and which Pepa dubs, and in the detergent advertisement where Pepa plays the mother of a gangster who washes her son's blood stained shirt just before the police barge into her house.

A lively riot of colour and movement, vivacious and warm-hearted in the end.

Spanish with English subtitles.

4 out of 5 stars.

Review: La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón / Mortadelo & Filemon: The Big Adventure (2003)

Filemón (Benito Pocino) and Mortadelo (Pepe Viyuela) are two agents of the TIA (Técnicos de Investigación Aeroterráquea), a secret government organization. They are assigned to retrieve a stolen device from Tirania, whose dictator has declared war on England by dropping a giant ball of dung on the Queen's palace. Complicating their mission is that their boss, El Super (Mariano Venancio), has sent super agent Fredy Mazas (Dominique Pinon) on the same task earlier, and Fredy has turned rogue and is trying to kill them.

Based on a long-running Spanish comic book series 'Mortadelo y Filemón' by Francisco Ibáñez, writer-director Javier Fesser and co-writer Guillermo Fesser have created a colourful and surreal world of secret agents, crazy gadgets and violent cartoon slapstick humour (people are squashed into pancakes, survive explosions with no ill effect other than a black face, leave man-shaped indentations when they run into doors, etc.). The plot takes a while to get into gear and oddly enough, the two principals don't cause as much mayhem as expected.

A lot of the jokes are rather ponderous and are slow to set up, and not having read the comic books, I suspect I missed many of the sight gags. My kids found parts of the film hilarious, rather like Lisa and Bart Simpson when they watch 'Itchy and Scratchy'.

Spanish with English subtitles.

2 out of 5 stars.

Review: Palabras encadenadas / Killing Words (2003)

Laura (Goya Toledo), a child psychiatrist, is abducted and imprisoned in an underground room by Ramón (Darío Grandinetti), a serial killer. In return for her life and freedom, he forces her to play word games. In a parallel narrative, police detectives, lead by Comisario Espinosa (Fernando Guillén) and Inspector Sánchez (Eric Bonicatto) question Ramón regarding Laura's disappearance.
As the title suggests (and unlike the lurid disk cover), this psychological thriller creates a lot of suspense using suggestion and judicious editing; there is very little violence or gore. The events in the two parallel narratives track each other and lead you to believe you have kept up with the story until the twist at very end.
Spanish with English sub-titles.
3 out of 5 stars.

Review: Nos miran / They're Watching (2002)

When detective inspector Juan Garcia (Carmelo Gómez) is assigned to a cold case involving a missing businessman, he comes upon evidence to suggest that something supernatural may have occurred.

Made after a slew of other supernatural thrillers such as 'The Others' by compatriot Alejandro Amenábar, director Norberto López Amado's film is only slightly creepy and intriguing. There's some suspense and doubt in the first half of the film but after a crazy ex-cop and a convenient knowledgeable priest fill in the blanks, the trajectory of the story is obvious. It doesn't help that some now-cliché devices, such as a subway train, are used to signal to the audience that something spooky will happen.

Spanish with English subtitles.

2 out of 5 stars.