eatcrowepls This is a decent Spanish post-war drama. It's nothing really special but the acting is good, the writing is fine, and it's a well constructed and well done film. I wish there were more surprises and parts of it dragged but it's definitely worth watching if you don't mind "foreign films" with re-dubs or subtitles, they don't bother me so much but I know others hate reading while trying to watch visuals.

jotix100 The triumph of Franco in Spain brought about a repression toward anyone that were considered communist. Intolerance from the church, which allied itself with the winners, took a hard line in order to defend their new reality in the country. Many opponents to the regime had to go to an exile that took them away from their country because of their ideas.Basically, this is the essence of Alberto Mendez's novel, that dealt in those difficult days the country lived after the war. We are presented a family that have to live in a small town where a father, Ricardo, has to hide from the Gestapo-like police, to save his own life. The wife, Elena, must try to live as normal life as she can, but instead of the quiet life she is looking for, trouble comes her way in an unexpected way.Salvador, the young seminarian, is a man with a troubled heart. He has been sent to the small town where Elena and her family are trying to live. To make matters worse, Salvador, who is the teacher of Lorenzo, Elena's young son, takes an interest in the beautiful mother. He is a hypocrite that cannot control his carnal impulses and tries to force himself upon her, causing the tragedy that will be the ruin of this family.Jose Luis Cuerda, the director, also helped Rafael Azcona to adapt the novel to the screen. Like every film about the Spanish Civil War, the Spanish directors, feel they are breaking new ground about the turmoil the conflict caused the Spanish people that had to live those terrible years. The director's feelings are on the side of the ones defeated that had to live the terrible ordeal.Maribel Verdu deserves better. She is a good actress, but the script, like in most Spanish films makes her the object of desire by the unscrupulous Salvador. Javier Camera does not have anything to do as Ricardo. Raul Arevalo's Salvador makes the most of his role in a film that goes nowhere.

Ire Once again, the postwar period is used as stage for a good movie with magnificent actors who turn it into a big one, giving life to prominent figures who fight to survive, trying to give sense to their acts, no matter what. It is true that Javier Cámara's jump turns out to be artificial, maybe because he does not spread himself in dramatic quality and goes to the practical thing, but Maribel Verdú, in her better moment of the movie, reduces the fault completely. We have an adaptation that focuses on the conflict of one of the main characters of the original tale. The totally corrupted by the war morality of the religious man (something that reminds me to the soldier men of In Elah's Valley) If they had focused, for example, on the confinement of the husband, we would have another thing, better or worse, we do not know it, but it would be already another story. By the way, the child asks this question because he does not see the suicide. Is just the woman who runs towards the room when the husband says goodbye.

Jaime_Fernandez This movie is based in a very famous book published in Spain with the same title. The book is really hard and very moving. I know many people who has cried reading it, and that's really complicated. The film, on the contrary, leaves apart the hardest chapters of the books and they only appeared at a tangential way. So, the story focused on the problems of a priest-soldier and practically the whole 100 minutes are about this boring character and his boring conversations. I'm really sorry about the result, because there were many great expectations about this movie in Spain. Everything is bad in the movie and reminds all the worst of Spanish Cinema. For instance, the scene when the hidden father jumped through the window to suicide is absolutely surrealistic with the boy (it is supposed he is clever) asking his mother why is she crying. "'Cause your father has killed himself! Didn't you notice?" The mother should have answered that to the boy to make the scene even more surrealistic, or just to turn it directly into a comedy. A missed opportunity to create a great movie with a great story. Just for the record, none, absolutely no one wept at the crowded press preview, not even a singe teardrop.