En la ciudad sin límites

This film was best film in the Berlinale 2002. I have seen 4 films a day during the festival and there was no film like this. Great actors, great script, intelligent and thrilling. Everything you need for a great film was in this movie. Congratulations to Spain for their great film industry. For me the best in Europe.

An old man is dying of cancer in a hospital, but he has something to do first. He doesn't trust no one in his family (who has gathered around him in hospital) but his younger son, Victor, who just arrived from Argentina. He is the only one to notice that something's weird with his father...

Hollywood-like thrillers are serving as a cover to introduce deep, human-relation movies to the public. We've seen it in Lantana for instance. The big misteries, the fantastic intrigues we've seen so many times in conventional American movies are here changed for feelings. Although the movie develops as a thriller, with its intrigues and misteries, at the end we see that there's no bigger mistery than human relationships.

A very good way of wrapping a typical intimist European or Asian movie with an American-style thriller cover.

Some things sneak up virtually unannounced, such that when the result is far more satisfying than one might erstwhile have presupposed, the surprise is even more gratifying. Such is the case with this Argentinian-Spanish co-production, mostly filmed in Paris. On seeing the IMDb voting average my reaction was something like: `ya veremos..........'.

Good interpretations by all the cast, especially by Fernando Fernán Gómez and Leonardo Sbaraglia, hold the spectator, and the film grows on you as the events unfold, admirably helped along by Víctor Reyes' music, from soft and melancholic to tense and rhythmic patterns a little in the style of Philip Glass.

The old man is dying in a Parisian hospital and all the family gather around him; the youngest son, Víctor comes all the way from Argentina with his girl-friend. But it is he who begins to unravel mysteries of the past, as the old man´s mind seems to be locked on events of forty years ago.

Well built-up story line, moving with logical ease from scene to scene with good characterization all round. The denouément seemed unnecessarily stretched; it could - should - have finished on the benches of the railway station; the ensuing brief scene rounding off the film is as foreseeable as unnecessary, and added nothing to what had already been stated.

Geraldine Chaplin does not usually go too well with me, and so it is in this film; I think it is that ever-present British accent speaking Spanish that annoys me a little; perhaps this is only a little mania of mine, as my own accent speaking Spanish is no better!

Highly recommendable film for those who look for real drama without over-the-top interpretations ` a la Hollywood' and can concentrate on the dialogues and development of a nicely filmed and told story.

This is a movie with strong acting and a suspenseful intrigue that successfully peels open layer by layer to leave a sentiment of understanding and satisfaction to the attentive audience.

"En la ciudad sin limites" is the story of a Spanish family (Madrid) who is gathered in Paris to support the 'pater familia' in his fight against a terminal illness. Family secrets and tense relations will surface and the dying old man, secretive as can be, will nonetheless give clues to what is really going on in the city without limits.

This Spanish and Argentinian co-production is a testament to the collaboration of nations to produce top-notch film-making with an excellent cast, great directing, deep and compelling storytelling, and the power of a incredible cinematic experience.

There are so many interesting stories intertwined that some will be left without clear answers, and this is particularly effective because of the care taken to flesh out believable flawed characters that make us attached and concerned about their lives. Lives that are no less complicated and problematic than our own.

You will experience unexpected turns hand and hand with the characters and be able to not only relish the story and the denouement of the complex plot, but to appreciate this portray of the drives and constraints of men.

I saw this movie by chance on a cable channel so i had no previous info about it. That's nice because there are no expectations, and the story kinda flows that way, it seems to be, at the beginning, a movie about a dying man, father of the central family and some trouble about money starts to pop, but the delusions of the sick father then begin to take importance, an enigma is brought to the ongoing lives of the family. Then movie starts turning around as some truths come up and finally a very unexpected ending. Thought it is a very slow an moody picture it has a nice rhythm, novelesque type. Acting is good specially by the leading roles (The father (Max) and his son (Victor). Music's really good and adequate for each scene. Some of this actors appear in some Almodovar films so it's a good casting i guess.