Todo es mentira

It is weird that when growing up some of your tastes change, and some of your favourite books, albums or movies suddenly look or feel ridiculous. With "Todo es mentira" a different thing happened: I saw the movie changed. What at the time I saw as a typical Madrid urban comedy (yes, it was a subgenre at the time) now I see it as a very sad, dark drama that shows the many flaws of the generation X, which (we) were much more narcissistic than we let people see. It is not only the Alfie story about romances (which is a great point btw) but characters here feel themselves condemned to adapt to love because they are not able to see with their partner's eyes. There are very few redeemable qualities about the Coque Malla main character or his friends, now I see that the Penelope Cruz character is right on most of not all of her arguments and so many of the people featured in this movie are the kind of people I have learned to avoid in my adult life.

But there is a lot of charm too. It brings back to what Madrid life was about during the 90s (the jazz cafés are seriously missed), the acting is on point (including Fernando Colomo who otherwise popularised the Madrid urban comedy) and it is poignant. And it made us all think that we need to go to Cuenca, so close to Madrid, so great, and yet not so much visited.

Well, i borrow this title from a french show by Mr Ardisson as it express well my feeling about the movie. It's indeed a gloomy, sad movie about relationships, that happens in addition mainly during the night. In other words, we don't see light or shining moments here. As "Alfie" already shows, the unlimited happiness at a start of a relationship always erodes with the time. It's an usual thing if the lovers have overrated themselves by showing only their best sides. Now, when it comes to share their life, they had to open up and show their bad sides as well, thus, the tension and the shouts. The movie explains that by following 4 couples of friends but the production is very cheap and the urban district is really depressive as well. Penélope was very young here and manages to display her sincere smile as well her strong resistance. Worthy of a watching but not more.

The story depicted in Todo es mentira could be the story of you and I. Young people (but not stupid, handsome, athletic... in a word: REAL people) living day by day carrying along their problems. And which are, basically, the young's problems? Sex and money. This is what Todo es mentira is about. Great film. Great performances (specially Coque and Penelope, and don't forget the brief performance of Santiago Segura). It's a vital experience more than a film. You must see it.

The Graps Experience

I must say that this is one of my favorite couple comedy movies. Reading to the last review, it got me thinking that, maybe, if you don't understand Spanish character and humor, you can loose the real sense of the movie, and misunderstand irony and sarcasm with depressing seriousness. For me, it's what the Annie Hall's Woody Allen would had done if he was born in Madrid. That's exactly what I think.

(Imdb is asking me for more lines of writing): The quality of the production is low cost, just as an opera prima usually does. References to places and characters are very well achieved. Coque Malla was an important singer and songwriter at that time (and still is). This was one of his first movies, and he succeeds more than well.