¡Ay, Carmela!

maybe, its basic virtue is the realistic portrait of Spanish Civil War. bitter, ironic, cruel and precise. and not surprising. because it is a film about freedom against totalitarian regime. a film about the way to escape from the cage of history. a film about force of art. and about sacrifice. and about the choice who defines yourself. I saw twice this special film. and each time as discovered it as a kind of gem. for the truths reflected with force. for the music. for the performances. and, sure, for the strange form of hope. so, the war. and the fight to survive.

Spain, 1938: The Republicans (the good guys) are at Civil War with the Nationalist Fascists (the bad guys), led by General Francisco Franco (the baddest). Entertaining the good-guy troops is a rag-tag theatrical troupe consisting of Carmela (Carmen Maura), her lover Paulino (Andres Pajares) and their gofer, the mute Gustavete (Gabino Diego). Carmela & Co. aren't all that intellectual or idealistic, but their narcissistic hearts are basically in a politically correct place and they seem to enjoy giving the Republican guys a few laughs and the odd tear; no one appears to notice, or to mind, that they aren't really all that good.

Directed by Carlos Saura, best known for the caliente flamenco films Carmen and Blood Wedding, Ay, Carmela! has rather too much in common with Carmela's company. It's technically rag-tag and droopy, neither analytical enough to be challenging nor sensual enough to be exciting. Conceived as a cross between Bye Bye Brazil and Mother Courage, it ends up a politicized Goodbye, Dolly!. That's a movie that the dazzlingly talented, irreverent pixie Pedro Almodovar (Women on the Verge of a Ner vous Breakdown) might have been able to bring off, but not the relatively flat-footed Saura.

The star of Ay, Carmela!, Carmen Maura, became famous through her work with Almodovar, of course, and she's fitfully amusing here, doing her Carmen Miranda"Susan Hayward routine, but Rafael Azcona's see-through script merely serves to expose her flaws as a dramatic actress (she's great at extremes, not so hot at normal behaviour).

The rest of the cast falls victim to that same flimsy script, which wafts toward a teary climax as easy to forecast as rain in Vancouver. For indigenous audiences - the picture has been a big hit in Spain - the movie is no doubt important and moving, presenting as it does the reality of a war hidden for many years by Franco's repression. But for the rest of us, it's merely an attempt to translate a history we already know into a kind of entertainment we've seen too many times. Ay, Carmela, and adios. Conrad Alton, Filmbay Editor.

This acclaimed latter-day Saura effort touches on, or rather weaves together, a number of his lifelong concerns – the performing arts are here placed within the context of the Spanish Civil War. In that respect, it inevitably elicits memories of Ernst Lubitsch's WWII masterpiece TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942) – but that film's blackly comic tones (deemed tasteless at the time) are here largely supplanted by genuinely less salubrious elements, notably grotesquerie and (unsurprisingly) eroticism!

Incidentally, while the script (co-written by Saura and Rafael Azcona in what would prove to be their sixth and final collaboration) does clearly take the side of the "Loyalists" (epitomized by the recurring title song) against the winning "Nationalist" forces in the ongoing conflict, it wisely opts to stress a general anti-war feeling – since, by then, the alternative Communist doctrine was seen to have also reaped an oppressive system (the Berlin Wall had just been torn down when the film was made)! That said, it paints a clichéd picture of Italians (who naturally supported the soon-to-be-established Fascist dictatorship) as lovers of pasta and Neapolitan songs!

The protagonists comprise a small-time variety act, but which is seen to go a long way on the woman's sensuality (she too is named Carmela and sings one of her numbers draped in the Republican flag!), her partner's penchant for rhythmic flatulence(!) and the sheer innocence of its third member, a mute boy (who, at one point, attempts to sell to the Italians the troupe's allegiance to their cause by inscribing "Viva Mulosini" {sic} on a tablet he carries around with him and, in another comic sequence, dutifully informs his boss that the delicious meat he is gorging himself on may well be that of a cat as opposed to rabbit!).

it is a form of parable. piece of long exorcism of Spain against its past shadows. a film like a puzzle of references. art resistance, moral choices, adventure, burlesque, compromises and truth, love and life and dream. all under the precise art of Carlos Saura tools. part of a chain, it is different. not only for extraordinary performance of Carmen Maura but for courage to not be only a Spanish story. the three flags, the prisoners, the school, theater, maybe the map are clues for define a deep European crisis and confrontation with the past. and that is the essence of this splendid movie - to open doors, to transform a past story in present reflection, to be a testimony and, in same measure, an invitation to discover the best choice in dark periods.

This is a film about human beings and how they cope with the nightmare of civil war. We are shown that people's reactions to this kind of ordeal are various. It is an extreme situation and this is conveyed very well by Carlos Saura - we watch people trying to forget where they are and enjoy themselves watching the antics of our variety troupe, only to be reminded of reality, as the sound of aircraft drowns out the performance. This theme of constantly being dragged back to the reality of war continues through the film. The acting is outstanding, Carmen Maura's in particular, and regardless of with whom our personal empathy may lie, Saura does not condemn individuals. Above all, the pain and sadness of a country at war with itself is expressed through the tortuous mental and emotional processes Carmela goes through.

This film brought tears to my eyes on more than one occasion. It says much about the value of human life,and the bewildering horror and absurdity of civil war.