Madregilda

In the dark Madrid of the mid-forties, in an old neighborhood tavern, every first Friday of the month at nightfall Moor Hauma organizes an unique and secret card game. The children Nazario and Manolito, two trappers who usually dig in the garbage, are fascinated by the actress Rita Hayworth from the production Gilda (1946) stars Glenn Ford, directed by Charles Vidor, in whom Longinos' son discovers his mother behind the image of Gilda, whose strip-tease convulsed the repressed Spanish society. As he recognizes his deceased mother Angela (Barbara Hauer) as the alleged Rita. Along the way, Captain Longinos (José Sacristán) is full of hatred and resentment while seeks the culprit of fifty men of his battalion sleeping with Angela before consummating their marriage, which makes he wants to kill her and adore her as if she were a saint on the altars. Later on, the Caudillo, Francisco Franco, meets with some friends of Africa's campaign for a game. This is how mus games take place between two historical figures: Francisco Franco (Juan Echanove), and Millán de Astray (Juan Luís Galiardo), along with Longinos (José Sacristán), and priest Huevines (Antonio Gamero).

A bizarre comedy full of farce, madness and excess. An offbeat tale characterized by the usual Hispanic and Valle-Inclanesque style. It depicts the sexual repression that was imposed by blood and fire on several generations of Spaniards, the only way out for their erotic fantasies that came from the cinema, in fact Rita Hayworth was the object of wet dreams of all kinds of men at the time. There's also a deep symbolism also typical of here, which make it a film of immense fascination for the spectator and adding its Spanish surrealism. It has some ridiculous remarks and pieces of nonsense, but it makes up for splendid performances from a great main and secondary cast. It follows the usual genre pertaining to the literary type created by Don Ramon Maria Del Valle Inclán . This ¨Madregilda¨ is the last part of the special and decent trilogy about parent-child relationships made up of ¨Padre Nuestro¨ and ¨Diario de Invierno,¨ always based on scripts written by Angel Fernandez Santos. However, Regueiro himself, frightened by his own baroque style and the overblown madness of his direction, becomes a self-censor and reduces the original 140 minutes to two hours, but with its screening at the San Sebastian festival and still fearful of the public's reaction, he reduces it again to 101 minutes. At this Festival, Juan Echanove won an award for acting. Nevertheless, so many cuts to the original film completely undo its central structure. Three years later, repentant of the absurd cuts and frightened of the damage caused, Regueiro returns to the original montage for its screening on TV and its distribution on video, which allows us to discover one of the strangest films filmed in the nineties. As usual, the best thing about the film is the long appearance of a gallery of actors who appear here and there, giving fine performances, they include the following familiar faces: José Sacristán, Barbara Auer, Antonio Gamero, Juan Luis Galiardo, Fernando Rey, Manuel Alexandre, Felipe García Vélez, Coque Malla, José María Cañete, Tina Saínz, María Massip, and of course Juan Echanove who won Silver shell in San Sebastian as Francisco Franco and Goya Award too.

This pungent motion picture was unevenly directed by Francisco Regueiro, in fact he relies on excessive dialogues without much sense . Regueiro is a cartoonist, painter, scriptwriter and director who has written scripts for film and television and for other directors. Francisco Regueiro was born in 1934 in Valladolid, Castilla y León, Spain. He is a writer and director, known for Padre nuestro (1985), Madregilda (1993) and El buen amor (1963). He belonged to New Spanish Cinema with El buen Amor¨(63) , and Amador¨(65) that was strongly censored . The great producer Elias Querejeta produced him some films like ¨Si Volvemos a Vernos¨, and ¨Carta de amor de un asesino¨. After that, he made documentary , television drama as ¨Cuentos y Leyendas : La niña que se hizo en rata¨. Later on , he made the flop ¨Me enveneno de azules¨. Shortly after, producer José Frade financed him ¨Duerme, duerme mi amor¨and ¨Las Bodas de Blanca¨, but both of them failed at the boxoffice. Then, he leaves the filmmaking for painting for 10 years. Although, thanks to Law Pilar Miro returns direction with this trilogy. Madregilda(1993) rating: 5.5/10.

If you miss this flick, don´t worry. There´s nothing to loose.

This is a movie that sips its inspiration from the same fountain that director Emir Kusturica drank when the movie `Underground' (1995) was made. It´s a surrealistic flick with an impoverished artistic vein.

In the beginning it looks a lot like `Hope and Glory'(1987) by John Boorman, tough the other flick is MUCH better, as the story follows the steps of a young lad in a war-plagued Spain during the General Franco regime. All of a sudden the story changes, as if another somebody had changed a TV channel while you were watching it. The movie now depicts an insane, resentful, incompliant man, who happens to be one of the supporters of the totalitarian regime, as a member of the Military. The portrait of this man could be defined as a cry against totalitarian regimes, no matter what name they get. This man is also the father of the boy of the beginning of the movie, and the killer of her mother, in a jealously frenzy. There´s another subplot (is there a main plot in this?) involving the imaginary relation between the boy and his mother, but the scenes are interwoven in the Frankenstein way. The overall impression that this movie leaves on the viewer is that this could have been a good flick if a better director conducted the work of filmmaking.

I must be honest and tell that I had a hard time just staying awake, thanks to dull characters and dark photography.