Spanish movies with English subtitles

These are some of my favourite Spanish films, all directed by Pedro Almodovar. They are all comedies but do not watch them if you are oversensitive to sex scenes or if you are always looking for the politically correct; Spanish films just aren't. They display a weird sense of humour. Perhaps it is a European humour, or a Spanish humour or I am more inclined to think that it is the particular way that the Spanish have to see life: A crude way to confront the most unpleasant situations. They are wonderfully dark comic stories about ordinary people. They can be viewed by men and women alike several times as you always will find a twist or references to old movies, literature and theatre that you did not notice the first time.

The films have little or no special effects. They rely on acting and dialogue which is hilarious. Although they are not comedies, strictly speaking, but they do bring a smile to your face. Maybe because you realize that even in the most stressful situations life is still worth living and laughing about!

Starring a young Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril.

A dramatic and comic story at the same time. The plot is simple, Ricky (Banderas) is a mental patient released from hospital. He only wants to start a new life, form a family and live happily ever after. The problem is that he has chosen as his bride-to-be Marina (Victoria Abril) a porn film star who once spent a night with him. Ricky tries to convince her to marry him but as she is reluctant to maintain any contact, he starts stalking her until he kidnaps her in her own house. It is a wacky, crude, sex-charged love story and unpredictable funny.

"The sex scene between 'Antonio Banderas' and Victoria Abril took nine takes to get right, and about nine hours to film. Pedro Almodóvar chose to use the last take as, by that time, the two actors had worked themselves up into a sweat which made the scene appear to be more authentic. Elia Kazan later remarked that he thought it was one of the best sex scenes he had ever witnessed." (extract from IMDB)

Starring: Verónica Forqué and Peter Coyote.

This is a crazy film with the most unpredictable situations and characters. A film charged with black humour. The plot is like in most Spanish films, a bit all over the place. Kika (Veronica Forqué) is a make up artist with a more than complicated life. She is in love with a voyeuristic photographer, but she is having an affair with his step father (Peter Coyote). To complicate things more, Kika has a lesbian maid with a porn star brother who just came out of jail. And this is just the start of the film... an utterly outrageous film, not for the over-sensitive.

Starring Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas.

This is the film that made Almodóvar an international star; it was nominated for the 1989 Academy Award for Best Foreign-language film, and won five Goya Awards including Best Film and Best Actress in a Leading Role for Maura.

The plot turns around Pepa (Carmen Maura) depressed because her married boyfriend just left her. But she will not let him go and will do anything to talk to him before he leaves town with his new lover. This film is hysterically comic in a dramatic way. The women in the film are each in their own way on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There is Pepa trying to get her lover back, a virgin having erotic dreams under the influence of sleeping pills, the lover's mentally deranged wife, Candela, who is escaping from the police and tries to kill herself and the new lover who tries to control Pepa's ex. The film is dramatic but full of little comic scenes like when Pepa burns her bed by accident, when she takes a mambo taxi or when someone visiting her drinks her gazpacho loaded with sleeping pills.

A must see for lovers of foreign films.

Starring: Eloy Azorín and Carmen Balagué

This is a melodramatic comedy where Manuela (Cecilia Roth) leaves Madrid after the death of her son to go to Barcelona to look for her son's father. There she finds an ex-transsexual friend and a young nun who turns out to be pregnant by Manuela's ex lover (the father of the dead boy) who is also a transsexual.

This is an emotive film about women, who have already gone through a nervous breakdown. It is sad, funny and extravagant. It has everything that makes a good film.