Uma Vida que te Espera

Director Manuel Gutierrez Aragon presents a rural drama that takes place in the mountains of Cantabria, in Northern Spain. This film, part of the annual presentation of Spanish cinema, is a picture with a lot of ambition. Were it not for this festival, Spanish films, such as this one, would not have been seen in this city because this type of cinema is not commercial and there is no market for it.

On the one hand, the movie shows the hard life these peasants lead in a remote and desolate region. Also, the director wants to make a statement about how progress in the country, being now part of the European Community, penalizes the small farmers that have eked a life from their cows and agriculture for ages.

If you haven't seen the film, please stop reading now.

The new developments in the country wreak havoc for Gildo, and his neighbor Severo. Both men are the victims of a system that condemns them both for producing more milk than it's allowed by the ECU. They don't see eye to eye; there is resentment and bad blood between them. When Gildo sends a young calf to his neighbor, Severo takes offense, taking his daughter Val prisoner, against her will, for nothing this young woman has done. There is confrontation between Severo, Val and Gildo, in which the first one dies.

This brings Rai, the estranged son of Severo back to the funeral and to put his father's things in order before returning to the small town, where he works as a hair dresser. Rai falls for Val, but the fact remains that this son, as well as the rest of the town, feels that Celso killed Severo. Rai falls hard for Val. Their romance goes against Gildo's wishes who feels the young man will see who the real culprit is.

The movie is more approachable than some of the other movies of this director, who can please an audience, as well as repulse the viewer.

Juan Diego is Gildo, who is totally convincing as Gildo. The young actress Marta Etura, is Val, the daughter who must work with the father to make a go of their meager existence. Ms. Etura bears an uncanny resemblance to Holly Hunter. Luis Tosar is Rai, who gives a controlled performance.

The views of the hills of Cantabria is breathtaking. The green mountains come alive in this movie. Mr. Gutierrez Aragon gives us a slice of life among these peasants whose lives have not changed for centuries.

A well told story with interesting questions about truth, redemption and sacrifice.

The plot is beautifully told and the scenery lovely.

I enjoyed this very much.

Two Cantabrian dairy farmers have a longstanding disagreement over a debt one owes to the other. Juan Diego plays Gildo, who owes Severo (Celso Bugallo) and tries to pay him off with a calf from his beautiful milk cow Vanessa, which is brought over to his farm by his older daughter Val (Marta Etura). However, in the current economic situation, calves aren't worth what they used to be, so Severo kidnaps Val for ransom, tying up her hands and locking her in his barn after he drags her through the mud. This must be the old fashioned way to settle debts. Gildo has to rescue Val from Severo, and Severo gets killed, bringing in the police. He tells Val to dress up and sends her and her younger sister Genia (spicy Clara Lago) off to a dance in town where he knows that Rai (Luis Tosar), Severo's son who is a hairdresser and has long since left the rural way of life, will be, hoping that Val will seduce him and thus remove any suspicion the police might have about who killed Severo. It's a clever story to follow, though I found the ending to be frustrating, as everyone in the town who was at Severo's funeral knew that he had it coming, and so does the viewer. Nonetheless, Gildo's story and character make this more than worthwhile to see, as well as the great settings.

Valle del Pas, Cantabria (Northern Spain). Present day. Tough times for the cattle farmers, they're being forced to limit their milk production in order to satisfy the European Union regulations. Gildo (Juan Diego) is one of those cattle farmers, he lives in some little village from the Valle del Pas with his to daughters. An old-fashioned widow-man who works from dawn to dusk in order to keep his little business alive. Her daughters, they don't want to live that way anymore, especially the youngest one (she likes to go to the disco, to be trendy...). And so goes their lives, till a Gildo's colleague is murdered (By Gildo himself, or so it would seem) and the son of that man (Luis Tosar) comes to the village to take care of his father's farm.

Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón has directed up to 20 movies, and for me is such an irregular filmmaker and writer. He's made some remarkable movies such as "Habla, Mudita", and he wrote the script (together with JL Borau) for that masterpiece called "Furtivos". But, though his works are usually very good filmed, so sober, and he's a good actor's director, there's always a lack of something in them. In "La Vida Que Te Espera" we find the rural enviroment (that he's portraited in many movies) perfectly prhotographied, Valle del Pas' landscapes are just espectacular. Juan Diego's performance is simply outstanding (he's one of the best spanish actors alive), and Tosar is just Ok in the kind of character he usually plays very skillfully (they could've had a better actress instead of Marta Eturra -typical young actress with nothing to say-). But the script... I think that Aragón fails to recreate the hardness that it should've required that kind of story, the roughness of it all (he achieves it in many sequences, but it's not enough: we're talking about people which lives isolated in the middle of a mountain, just like Heidi and his goddman grandpa). He also does not measure the rhythm that well: the passages of more intensity occurs a long time before the end of the movie: there's sort of a fake-ending, and the last 20 minutes are a little weary, explaining things that we all know by that moment.

Anyway, Juan Diego's performance justifies the viewing. In he'd born in Texas or in California he'd be one of the most well-known actors in the world.

My Rate: 6.5/10

This is a sweet story of family bonds and the lengths these family members will go to in order to protect and defend their own. That is, until suspicions abound and everyone suspects the other of being insincere &/or guilty. The characters are old-fashioned dairy farmers (pasiegos) in a remote area in Spain. It's a well told story with wonderful characters and beautiful scenery. I hadn't heard of these farmers before or of their plight so learning about them was an added bonus of seeing this film.

Even though I really loved this movie, there were some odd moments (one in particular, when the daughters are dancing with their father, was quite inappropriate).

"La vida que te espera" left me feeling that people as a whole are inherently good, and will stand by those that are important to them, not only in regards to the established family ties, but also in regards newly formed bonds.