En la ciudad sin límites

En la Ciudad sin Limites certainly traps the audience in the mystery and suspense of the story. The film is about a family who is reunited in France when the news of their sick father comes to each of the brothers. As the sons and their mother talk about selling the family business, Victor, one of the sons, switches his attention to the needs of his father. Although everyone else believes that Max is delusional, Victor gives him the benefit of the doubt, which in time reveals some hidden secrets which none of the sons new about. The character of the father, Max, is a very interesting one which keeps the audience at the edge of their seats, wanting to know whether he is acting crazy or if he has a purpose in mind. While the story centers on Max and his son Victor, the director also includes side stories of affairs involving the brothers and their girlfriends or ex-wives. These side stories do not add much to the mystery at hand, but seem to only make the story a bit more complex.

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.

A rich Spanish man is treated for a brain tumor in a Paris hospital . His family around him, fighting for the inheritance (and mutually betraying). The old man seems to have lost contact with reality, but his elder son noticing that he still has some consciousness, tries to establish a communication with him, even when that implies to get into his father madness and discover secrets nobody wants to surface.

The movie is an exercise in suspense. Perfectly orchestrated situations, make you feel nervous about simple things as a walk in the hall (trying to get out of the hospital). Or make the bad guy out of a worried mother. This is just a family story with an old mystery. It is so simple that similar things happen every day but with an incredible craftsmanship was converted in a thriller.

Yes, it is a thriller and a mystery. It has all the elements you usually expect; sex, betrayal, lies. No, is not what you expect. The story is clever but realistic. The violence is replaced with poetry, and as in real life, lots of things happen but few are really resolved.

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.