REVIEWS Amador REVIEWED BY MIKE GOODRIDGE
Spain’s Fernando De Leon Aranoa turns to the comic, almost whimsical, in Amador while still keeping his story firmly rooted in the social and financial issues facing the less fortunate. Shot and paced with an uncharacteristic tran-
quillity and visual elegance, this is a charmer which will travel widely and win him legions of new fans. Peruvian actress Magaly Solier from Milk Of Sor- row and Altiplano gives a luminous central per- formance which is central to the film’s success. The story has elements of last year’s Berlinale
title Puzzle from Argentina or The Maid from Chile in its story of a woman finding herself through a change of circumstance. But Amador is a cut above those films, buoyed by a playful sense of humour which is not traditionally associated with the direc- tor’s work. It should do healthy arthouse business. Marcela (Solier) is an immigrant to Spain from
an unnamed Latin American country, whose boy- friend Nelson (Sibille) runs a flower-selling busi- ness from their tiny tower-block apartment. Frustrated with their impoverished hard-working lifestyle and not convinced she ever loved him, Marcela is about to leave Nelson when she finds out she is pregnant and reluctantly stays put. Everything changes when she takes a summer job looking after a bedridden elderly man, Amador
PANORAMA
Sp. 2011. 112mins Director/screenplay Fernando Leon De Aranoa Production companies Reposado, Mediapro International sales Imagina, www.
imaginasales.tv Producers Fernando Leon De Aranoa, Jaume Roures Cinematography Ramiro Civita Editor Nacho Ruiz Capillas Music Lucio Godoy Main cast Magaly Solier, Celso Bugallo, Pietro Sibille, Sonia Almarcha, Fanny De Castro
(Bugallo), to raise money to pay for a new fridge for Nelson’s business. She develops a feisty rapport with the old man, whose daughter and son-in-law are spending the summer by the sea building a new house. But his sudden death leaves her in a predica- ment. If she tells his daughter of the death, she will not earn the money she and Nelson need so badly. She resolves to keep Amador’s death a secret. Solier’s lovely wide face is twisted by anguished
private torment as Marcela deals with her dilem- mas and secrets. Burdened with the abundant guilt a Catholic upbringing engenders, anxiety that she is in the wrong relationship and the added turbulence of poverty and pregnancy, she sits alone in Amador’s apartment, trying to suppress the mal-
odors of the corpse with roses and air freshener. Only the ageing prostitute (Fanny De Castro
gives a wonderfully ribald, almost Almodovarian turn here) who visited Amador every Thursday can offer her support as the hot summer wears on. Leon embraces the whimsy of his story, dousing
the piece in a fanciful musical score by Argentinian composer Lucio Godoy and throwing in some laugh-out-loud sequences. But at its heart, the film is concerned with profound notions of love, life and death — the three factors in life celebrated by flow- ers — and the choices Marcela will make to get her own life on the right track. God is mentioned fre- quently in the process, but Amador is chiefly con- cerned with down-to-earth human problems.
February 14, 2011 Screen International in Berlin 23 n
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52