Claudio Carvalho
In Madrid, the teenager Lulu (Francesca Neri) has a crush on Pablo (Oscar Ladoire), who is the best friend of her brother Marcelo (Fernando Guillén Cuervo). One day, they go together to a concert and Lulu loses her virginity with Pablo. However, he travels to the United States and Lulu misses him.When he returns, they meet each other and Pablo proposes Lulu to marry him. Soon they befriend the travesty Ely (María Barranco) and play sexual games with her. Later they have a daughter, Ines.One day, after a party, Pablo blindfolds Lulu and proposes a threesome; when Lulu discovers that she had an incestuous relation with Marcelo, she leaves Pablo to live with Ines in an apartment. Lulu feels bored and soon she is addicted in kinky and bizarre sex with gays in the underground of Madrid. Her erotic journey descends to hell when she meets the dangerous Remy (Juan Graell) that invites her to the world of sadomasochism."Las Edades de Lulú" is a film by Bigas Luna immediately after the cult "Angustia" that discloses the erotic and dramatic journey of a Spanish woman to the underworld of the bizarre sex in Madrid. I saw this movie for the first time in the early 90's (last time was on 29 Aug 1999 on VHS), and today I have just seen it again on DVD and this film has not aged. Francesca Neri is very beautiful and sexy and I did not recall that "Las Edades de Lulú" is the debut of Javier Bardem in a feature. I would like to highlight that this movie is sexually violent and perverted reaching the boundary with pornography and is only recommended for very specific audiences. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "As Idades de Lulu" ("The Ages of Lulu")
dbborroughs
This is the story of a woman through told pretty much through her sex life. As the film progresses we watch as her life goes from one of normalcy to one on the fringes of "normal" society, and its a course mirrored by her sex life. It is a very lurid film that pretty much covers every sexual subject you can think of, and probably some you can't. Its a well made movie that is so close to being an explicit film that one wonders why they didn't bother to go all the way and not shy away from showing it all. But its not really about the sex, since this is a smutty film that has the belief that its about something other than just showing hot sweaty sex. I'm not sure if thats true or not. Actually I'm not sure what I think of this film. frankly its one of those movies that you see and aren't enthused by, but which you find yourself haunted by none the less. There is something about the film that keeps me wondering if its not better than I think it is. Then again it maybe the desire to see the hot sweaty sex again (It really is steamy)If you're not prudish and ready to deal with sex in all of its varieties then by all means dive in and give it a try. If you are offended by anything other than straight forward heterosexual sex, then stay away.
alice liddell
It is difficult to know whether Bigas Luna is an unreconstructed celebrator of machismo, or a sly critic of it. In Jamon Jamon, the hero's tragedy is linked to his phallic power, but so is much of the film's energy and pleasure. In Golden Balls, the hero is plainly subject to critique, but the treatment of women is frequently exploitative.The Ages Of Lulu differs from these hits in having a woman as protagonist. One of the interests of the film is in the way the viewer is never sure what direction it is going to take. It begins with the lightest of touches, and ends in dark tragedy. On one level, it is a rite-of-passage story (the crucial early scenes are soundtracked to pastiche early rock'n'roll), as we follow the growth to maturity of a naive young girl, from the object of male fantasy, to a woman who recognises her own desire, and knows how to satisfy it; from someone who must tell stories to arouse her lovers, to someone who narrates her own self-defining story.Lulu's greater independence, however, is treated with solemnity and fear by the film, which is also a rigorous exploration of sexuality as site of character, identity, gender role-play, philosophy and politics (almost a comic Ai No Corrida, although this terror of female transgression recalls Lulu's famous namesakes in Wedekind, Pabst and Berg). However, the admirable realism and nervous pleasurability of the early sex scenes become dark, demonised and dangerous the more freedom Lulu gains. The final nightmare orgy brings Lulu to her senses, and back to her selfish wimpy man. Her consistently marginalised transvestite friend is sacrificed so that heterosexuality can reassert itself.The irony of this film is not as apparent as it is in Luna's more famous films, and Spanish audiences might be more alert to the contemporary resonances than I am. Phalluses abound in this still strongly patriarchal culture. There is none of the verve, colour and melodramatic swagger of Jamon Jamon in Luna's direction here, which is detached, yet prurient. The film shares many of the same features as an 80s Almodovar movie, but without the extravagant formal means of ironising the material. The story begins to get monotonous when the finger begins to wag. There isn't much opportunity for good acting: Neri is much better in Live Flesh, though she ages convincingly here.
