Belle
Époque
Director: Fernando
Trueba
Distributed by:
Sony Pictures Classics,
Released: December 1992
Country:
Spain
Do you ever channel surf and find
yourself landing at Telemundo or Univision when they’re showing those
telenovelas with the silly acting and mucho
caliente actresses? Do you leave it
on with no subtitles even though you have no idea what is going on until your
wife walks in, when you pretend you were just flipping through to find a ball game,
or maybe tell her you forgot where The History Channel is? This has never happened to me. But if it has to you, this is your movie.
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| Fernando with The Wild One |
Belle
Époque is set in 1931 Spain, a country in political
turmoil. This is before Francisco Franco
took over in 1936 (he’s still dead) during the Spanish Civil War. Before the Civil War, the Traditional Monarchists were
fighting the Republicans. These Spanish
Republicans weren’t the fun kind like Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz, but were
secularists who were no friends to the Catholic Church.
The movie centers around Fernando, a pretty boy who
used to live in a seminary, now deserting the Traditionalist army because he has gone agnostic somehow, possibly because of what he has seen in the war. He meets an old man and befriends him,
and is invited to stay at the old man's home for awhile.
The old guy takes a liking to him because Fernando, while in the
seminary, learned to cook better than the Galloping Gourmet.
Fernando stays with him a little while and is getting ready to get on a train out of town when he finds out the old man has four super-hot daughters about to return home. One is a widow; one’s engaged, and a bit on the wild side; and one’s a lesbian. Fernando has spend the last few years in the army and in the seminary, so he's not picky. And Fernando has some serious luck with women—he looks sweet and innocent, doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing, but is able to get more girls in the sack in two hours than Frank Sinatra did in any given two weeks.
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| The Lesbian |
Fernando stays with him a little while and is getting ready to get on a train out of town when he finds out the old man has four super-hot daughters about to return home. One is a widow; one’s engaged, and a bit on the wild side; and one’s a lesbian. Fernando has spend the last few years in the army and in the seminary, so he's not picky. And Fernando has some serious luck with women—he looks sweet and innocent, doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing, but is able to get more girls in the sack in two hours than Frank Sinatra did in any given two weeks.
 |
| The Widow |
Now I said there were four daughters, and Fernando can't decide which one he wants. He takes a crack at the oldest three one by one, thinking he may be in love with each--even the lesbian, who seduces him in the movie's most strange and funny scene. The youngest daughter is an 18-or-19-year-old Penelope Cruz. She’s the tough nut to crack because she’s a
virgin, but don’t think that will stop Fernando from doing everything he can to
change that.
Overall, I wasn’t
sure if this film really worked as a comedy, or maybe would have been better as a long telenovela, but
in the end it was fun enough to watch. It certainly felt like a guilty pleasure. I
did leave on the subtitles the whole time, but to be honest, I spent most of the film trying
to decide which daughter was the hottest; while I had to rely on sight,
Fernando is able to use all senses to answer that question, and use them all he
does. Who will he end up with?
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| The Virgin |
The
Title: Literally, the
“Beautiful Era.” The term really is
supposed to refer to pre-World War I Europe; I suppose it refers to the time in
Spain between the Monarchy in 1931 and Franco in 1936. Or the time Fernando is living in a house with four beautiful women.
The
Culture: You do get a
flavor for the constant flux in Spanish politics before the totalitarian Generalissimo Francisco Franco
took over with the help of his amigos Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolin. Rural Spain back
then seemed like it would be a lovely place to vacation.
Agenda
Danger: Nothing major,
but there are a few Traditionalist/Catholic characters that come off as silly,
hypocritical, and stuffy. The secularism
of the Republicans seems to come off as a bit more rational.
Best
Picture that year:
Schindler’s List
Rating: Light in tone and visually satisfying (see
above: did I mention the four hot daughters?). Why not
check it out?
