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Lovers (film)
Encyclopedia
Lovers is a 1991 Spanish
film noir
written and directed by Vicente Aranda
, starring Victoria Abril
, Jorge Sanz
and Maribel Verdú
. The film brought Aranda to widespread attention in the English-speaking world. It won two Goya Awards
(Best Film and Best Director) and is considered one of the best Spanish films of the 90s.
, in the mid 1950s, Paco, a handsome young man from the provinces serving the last days of his military service, is in search of both a steady job and lodging. He is engaged to be married to Trini, his commandant’s maid. Trini is not only sweet and pretty, but also has saved a sizable amount of money through years of hard work and frugal living, which will enable her and Paco to start their lives together comfortably. With a factory job lined up, Paco moves out of his barracks and look for somewhere to live until the wedding. He is referred by Trini to Luisa, a beautiful widow who periodically takes in boarders and rents him a spare bedroom.
Besides supplementing her income with boarders, Luisa engages in swindles with underworld contracts, and is not above cheating her partners by skimming money off her illicit earnings. Instantly smitten by Paco, the attractive Luisa quickly seduces her new tenant. Paco, frustrated by his unfruitful job hunt and by Trini's refusal to sleep with him until they are married, offers little resistance when Luisa seduces him, initiating an affair. He is dazzled with the sexual delight to which she introduces him. So intense is Paco’s attraction for Luisa, that he abandons Trini for long periods, finally showing up at the commander’s house to spend Christmas Eve with her. Trini begins to feel a distance between herself and Paco, and while the couple is strolling in the street, she is surprised to see the “old widow” and immediately guesses that she and Paco are having a relationship.
Trini seeks the advice of the commandant’s wife, who tells her that she should use her own sexual powers to win Paco back. Waiting for Luisa to leave the apartment, Trini goes to Paco’s room and gives herself to him, making sure that Luisa later sees her leaving. At first, her tactic works and Paco reaffirms her love for her and they leave to visit Trini’s mother in her village. However, Trini is no match for her rival as a lover and Paco cannot get Luisa out of his mind.
When they come back to Madrid, Paco is willing to continue his twin relationship, but Luisa, who knows of Trini’s existence, is wildly jealous of her rival. Things become more complicated for Paco by Luisa’s shady business dealings with Minuta and Gordo, members of a gang of swindlers whom she owes money. They have threatened her life and Paco, attempting to aid his lover, suggests that he get the money by swindling Trini of her savings. Luisa would prefer that they simply kill Trini and proposes that Paco should marry Trini, then steal her savings and run away with Luisa. Paco uneasily agrees.
The plan is for Paco to propose marriage to Trini and bring her to the provincial city of Aranda del Duero where they have planned to purchase a bar. Under that pretense, Paco and Trini leave Madrid. Luisa follows them, unsure of Paco’s resolve. While Trini is asleep, Paco steals the money from her handbag. He offers it to Luisa but pulls out of their plan to flee together. Luisa refuses – it is Paco she wants - and, driven by guilt, he returns to Trini to explain the situation. After the disappearance of the money, Trini realizes the fraud and understand that her love for Paco is doomed. When Paco comes back to the hotel room and confesses the plan, Trini tells him she prefers death to abandonment. Thwarted in her attempt to cut her own wrist with Paco’s razor, she begs him to kill her since that is what he really wants. Later, as the two sit in the rain on a bench in front of the cathedral of the town, Trini hands Paco the razor. In despair, she asks Paco to kill her. He stabs her and rushes to the station to prevent Luisa from leaving. His bloody hands signal to Luisa that the mission has been accomplished. The couple embraces passionately on the platform as the train pulls out. A title informs viewers that the police captured the pair three days later.
Amantes had its origin in La Huella del Crimen (The trace of the crime), a Spanish TV series depicting infamous crimes happened in Spain
, for which Vicente Aranda
had directed the chapter El Crimen del Capitán Sánchez
(Captain Sánchez's Crime) in 1984. The success of this production, made for TVE, compelled Producer Pedro Costa to develop a second part. In the new installment of the series, there was an episode called Los Amantes de Tetuán (The Tetuan’s lovers) the story of a real life crime committed by a couple living in the district of Tetuán de las victorias, a working class sector of Madrid
. The actual crime took place in the 1940s in La Canal, a small village near Burgos
and so it was also dubbed as "El crimen de La Canal" (La Canal's crime).
In "El crimen de La Canal", a widow engaged in blackmailing persuaded a young man to kill his young wife. Three days later, the couple was caught and never saw each other again. They were condemned to capital punishment, still prevailing by those years in Spain, (nor even their attorney wanted to defend them). Eventually, they got their sentence commuted and they served between ten and twelve years. The widow died of a heart attack just after leaving jail, and the young man started a new, anonymous and prosperous life in Zaragoza
.
A reinterpretation of the crime was built up during the pre-production of Los Amantes de Tetuán. The script was written by Alvaro del Amo, Carlos Perez Merinero and Vicente Aranda using some elements of the actual crime and reinventing many others to recreate the background of the characters about which little was known. The T.V project was halted from 1987 to 1990 and when the time came to start production, Los Amantes de Tetuán took a separate life from La huella del crimen. It was going to be the last chapter to be filmed because Vicente Aranda
was immersed in the making of a miniseries for TVE. By then Aranda was initially reluctant to make another production for T.V and proposed to expand the script and make it into a full feature film for the big screen. Thanks to the recent success of his miseries for T.V Los Jinetes del Alba
the project was approved by TVE.
The original title, Los Amantes de Tetuán, was changed to avoid confusion with the North Africa city of the same name. The events were moved from the 1940s to an unspecific time in the '50s for both economic and dramatic reasons. It was cheaper to recreate the period of the '50s and Vicente Aranda considered the '50s more appealing for modern audiences. The real life crime story was treated in the same way Billy Wilder
did with the facts that inspired James M. Cain
's novel Double Indemnity. Bigas Luna
’s Las Edades de Lulu
, a movie seen by Aranda, inspired the eroticism
of the film.
The most famous sequence of the film in which Luisa introduces a handkerchief in Paco’s anus to withdraw it in the moment of climax, was not in the script. Vicente Aranda explains:
The intense, tragic and beautiful climax was benefited by the weather, with a snowstorm that was not scheduled at all for the shooting, as producer, Pedro Costa, explained at the DVD
commentaries. That scene filmed in front of the famous Burgos Cathedral
was articulated around a popular Spanish Christmas carol, La Marimorena, whose traditional cheerful melody, by contrast, is changed for the score into an elegiac and sad one. The score was composed by Jose Nieto, often working with Aranda (Intruso
, Celos
, Juana la Loca, Carmen
) and the film editor was Aranda’s regular, his wife Teresa Font.Equally noteworthy is the film’s striking cinematography by Jose Luis Alcaine, with whom Aranda had previously worked on no fewer than five films. Alcaine is especially adept at evoking the “sooty” look of Madrid winters, which combey the somber qualities of urban life during the early years of Franco’s dictatorship.
, here in her ninth collaboration with Vicente Aranda, was thought of from the beginning for the role of Trini, the virginal maid, while Concha Velasco
was offered the role of Luisa. When Velasco declined, Aranda deemed Victoria was mature enough to play Luisa and proposed her to switch roles and take the one of the widow. She was reluctant, saying that she saw herself more as Trini, the sacrifice maid rather than the wicked widow. Victoria Abril was pregnant, by the time she gave birth and was ready to start the film she had had a change of heart and accepted to be Luisa.
The role of Trini fell on Maribel Verdú
, a young actress who had made her film debut with Aranda in El Crimen del Capitán Sánchez
(Captain Sánchez's crime) in 1984, as younger sister of Victoria Abril
who was the leading actress of that film. Maribel Verdú
, whose artistic culmen maybe is Ricardo Franco
's 1997 La Buena Estrella
is better known internationally for her roles in Alfonso Cuarón
’s Y tu mamá también
and in Guillermo del Toro
's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth
.
At first, Aranda thought about Antonio Banderas
as Paco, but the actor had already undertaken Arne Glimcher
's The Mambo Kings
, and the role was assigned to Jorge Sanz
. He is perhaps best known to English-speaking audiences playing the roles of the young soldier who falls in love with four sisters in Belle Époque (film)
the Oscar
winner as a foreign film in 1993. Sanz had won a Goya Award as best actor for Aranda’s Si te dicen que Caí
, a film which starred Victoria Abril. The three lead actors of Amantes had been together before in Vicente Aranda’s previous project, Los Jinetes del Alba
, in another love triangle.
(1994). Amantes forms with Intruso
(1993) and Celos
(1999) a trilogy of films about love as uncontrollable passion that ends tragically. These three films directed by Vicente Aranda are loosely based in real crime stories.
In Amantes, Aranda focuses tightly on his three leading actors, effectively conveying the dreadful, consuming power of passion. The films portrays a mortal struggle between a strong phallic widow and a younger patriarchal woman for the love of a young man in a romantic love triangle. The widow derives her power from an intense sexuality and the religious idealism belongs to the young victim . Set in film noir genre, it depicts the young man, Paco, not as the master of the two women who love him, but as the malleable object of their competing scenarios . Luisa is introduced with a mouthful of candy, and draped with Christmas tinsel, almost as though she were a gift to the sexually frustrated Paco. Aranda thus sets up his central conflict with precision and power. Despite the physical beauty of the two women, it is the handsome young man who is treated as the primary object of desire. He is seduced by both women and is the object of the camera’s erotic gaze . He embodies the 1950s generation torn between “two Spains,” The formulation of the two Spains are represented by the two female rivals. Identified with the images of rural Spain
, Trini is the traditionally stoically self-sacrificing embodiment of catholic Spain versus the modern vision of a newly emerging industrialized Spain, incarnated in Luisa who is identified with the city and with the iconography of foreign culture (Kimonos, Christmas tree ornaments), representing the modernizing version of Spain . Though the narrative eventually cast Luisa as the heartless instigator of Trini’s murder, she can also be perceived as a rebel against the oppression of a macho culture while Paco, a traditional tragic film noir hero, is turned into a murderer by the two women who love him.
Despise being positioned as the opposing stereotypes of virgin and whore; Trini and Luisa are equally passionate and strong willed. Both are frequently robed in blue, a color feature in traditional pictorial representations of the virgin, and Trini takes with her a painting of the Immaculate Conception
and hangs it in the hotel room just before her death. While Luisa directs her violent passions outwards, confessing to Paco that she murdered her husband, Trini turns them inwards on herself, following in the footsteps of her lame mother who threw herself in front of a cart after learning of her husband ‘s infidelity . Just as Luisa forced Paco to take hold of his penis in their pursuits of pleasure; Trini coerces him to wield the razor that will release her from pain.
The sexual scenes of the film are designed to underscore the female domination of the male; even in terms of his sexual identity . Amantes forcefully depicts the subversive power of Luisa’s sexuality. From the moment she opened the door to Paco, wearing a colorful dark blue robe and draped with glittering streamers she is using to decorate a Christmas
tree, Luisa appears as a profane alternative to the Madonna. Her body substitutes for the Christmas tree and all of its religious symbolism, offering eroticism in place of religious ecstasy. Not only she is the sexual subject who actively pursues her own desire and who first seduces Paco, but she continues to control the lovemaking. In a graphic sex scene, we see her penetrating his anus with a silk handkerchief and then withdrawing it in the moments of ecstasy. Despite her sexually dominating her young lover, Luisa remains loving and emotionally vulnerable. Paco response not only makes him obsessed, but he rejects the more traditional passive sexuality of his fiancé Trini.
The murder scene is remarkable for its understated approach. Stage on a bench in front of the cathedral of Burgos
(the small town of Aranda del Duero in the film), the murder retains the aura of Christian ritual, especially since the minimalist representation of violence is limited to a few close-up of the victim’s barefoot and a few drops of bright red blood falling on the pure white snow. Earlier, Paco had sat on the same bench praying, observed by a beautiful young mother who was carrying a bright blue umbrella and tying the shoelace of her young son, a symbolic Madonna who seems to foresee the murder .
In the final scene, Paco goes to the train station to find Luisa. Pressing his bloody hands against the window, he draws her off the train for a final murderous embrace, a shot that is held, then blurs and finally freezes, signifying the triumph of their passion.
A printed epilogue delivers the ironic moralizing punch line to the narrative. Three days later, Paco and Luisa were arrested in Valladolid (a city well known for its right-wing sentiments) and they never saw each other again.
in that Film. There are similarities to François Truffaut
’s La Femme d'à côté
, another amour fou film in which a lame older woman own story foretells the tragic ends.
Vicente Aranda
’s cold style to unrestrained passions has also being compare to the similar approach to passion in Ingmar Bergman
’s films. The American movie To Die For
that was inspired by the Pamela Smart
case, the most famous crime in New Hampshire
history, was compared to the similar plot of Amantes.
where Victoria Abril
won the Silver Bear for Best Actress
. In Spain
it was a great success with critics and audiences and won two Goya Awards
including Best Film and Best director.
Amantes was the first of Aranda’s films to get an American release, opening in March 1992 becoming an important art house hit, getting more than one and a half million dollars at the box-office. The movie shocked audiences because of the frankness of its sex scenes.
The film remains Vicente Aranda
’s best-regarded work; he explains “ Whenever someone wants to flatter me, they bring up the subject of Amantes. I haven’t been able to make a film that takes its place.
Cinema of Spain
The art of motion-picture making within the nation of Spain or by Spanish filmmakers abroad is collectively known as Spanish Cinema.In recent years, Spanish cinema has achieved high marks of recognition as a result of its creative and technical excellence...
film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
written and directed by Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda , is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Due to his refined and personal style, he is one of the most renowned Spanish filmmakers. He started as a founded member of the Barcelona School of Film and became known for bringing contemporary Spanish novels to life on the...
, starring Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril is a Spanish film actress. She is best known to international audiences for her performance in the movie ¡Átame! by director Pedro Almodóvar....
, Jorge Sanz
Jorge Sanz
Jorge Sanz is a Spanish actor and is one of the most prominent actors of the Spanish cinema since the 1980s. He is known to international audiences for his roles in the films: Amantes by director Vicente Aranda and Fernando Trueba’s Belle Époque .-Early life :Jorge Sanz Miranda was born on August...
and Maribel Verdú
Maribel Verdú
Maribel Verdú is a Spanish actress. She is known to English-speaking audiences for playing Luisa in the 2001 film Y tu mamá también and Mercedes in Guillermo del Toro's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth. In Spain she is known for films such as Belle Époque, Tetro, and Huevos de oro.Verdú was born María...
. The film brought Aranda to widespread attention in the English-speaking world. It won two Goya Awards
Goya Awards
The Goya Awards, known in Spanish as los Premios Goya, are Spain's main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards....
(Best Film and Best Director) and is considered one of the best Spanish films of the 90s.
Plot
In MadridMadrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, in the mid 1950s, Paco, a handsome young man from the provinces serving the last days of his military service, is in search of both a steady job and lodging. He is engaged to be married to Trini, his commandant’s maid. Trini is not only sweet and pretty, but also has saved a sizable amount of money through years of hard work and frugal living, which will enable her and Paco to start their lives together comfortably. With a factory job lined up, Paco moves out of his barracks and look for somewhere to live until the wedding. He is referred by Trini to Luisa, a beautiful widow who periodically takes in boarders and rents him a spare bedroom.
Besides supplementing her income with boarders, Luisa engages in swindles with underworld contracts, and is not above cheating her partners by skimming money off her illicit earnings. Instantly smitten by Paco, the attractive Luisa quickly seduces her new tenant. Paco, frustrated by his unfruitful job hunt and by Trini's refusal to sleep with him until they are married, offers little resistance when Luisa seduces him, initiating an affair. He is dazzled with the sexual delight to which she introduces him. So intense is Paco’s attraction for Luisa, that he abandons Trini for long periods, finally showing up at the commander’s house to spend Christmas Eve with her. Trini begins to feel a distance between herself and Paco, and while the couple is strolling in the street, she is surprised to see the “old widow” and immediately guesses that she and Paco are having a relationship.
Trini seeks the advice of the commandant’s wife, who tells her that she should use her own sexual powers to win Paco back. Waiting for Luisa to leave the apartment, Trini goes to Paco’s room and gives herself to him, making sure that Luisa later sees her leaving. At first, her tactic works and Paco reaffirms her love for her and they leave to visit Trini’s mother in her village. However, Trini is no match for her rival as a lover and Paco cannot get Luisa out of his mind.
When they come back to Madrid, Paco is willing to continue his twin relationship, but Luisa, who knows of Trini’s existence, is wildly jealous of her rival. Things become more complicated for Paco by Luisa’s shady business dealings with Minuta and Gordo, members of a gang of swindlers whom she owes money. They have threatened her life and Paco, attempting to aid his lover, suggests that he get the money by swindling Trini of her savings. Luisa would prefer that they simply kill Trini and proposes that Paco should marry Trini, then steal her savings and run away with Luisa. Paco uneasily agrees.
The plan is for Paco to propose marriage to Trini and bring her to the provincial city of Aranda del Duero where they have planned to purchase a bar. Under that pretense, Paco and Trini leave Madrid. Luisa follows them, unsure of Paco’s resolve. While Trini is asleep, Paco steals the money from her handbag. He offers it to Luisa but pulls out of their plan to flee together. Luisa refuses – it is Paco she wants - and, driven by guilt, he returns to Trini to explain the situation. After the disappearance of the money, Trini realizes the fraud and understand that her love for Paco is doomed. When Paco comes back to the hotel room and confesses the plan, Trini tells him she prefers death to abandonment. Thwarted in her attempt to cut her own wrist with Paco’s razor, she begs him to kill her since that is what he really wants. Later, as the two sit in the rain on a bench in front of the cathedral of the town, Trini hands Paco the razor. In despair, she asks Paco to kill her. He stabs her and rushes to the station to prevent Luisa from leaving. His bloody hands signal to Luisa that the mission has been accomplished. The couple embraces passionately on the platform as the train pulls out. A title informs viewers that the police captured the pair three days later.
Production
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, for which Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda , is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Due to his refined and personal style, he is one of the most renowned Spanish filmmakers. He started as a founded member of the Barcelona School of Film and became known for bringing contemporary Spanish novels to life on the...
had directed the chapter El Crimen del Capitán Sánchez
El Crimen del Capitán Sánchez
Captain Sánchez’s Crime is a 1985 Spanish drama film, made for TV in 16 mm and directed by Vicente Aranda. It stars Fernado Guillén, Victoria Abril and José Cerro. The film is based on a real crime which occurred in Madrid in 1913.-Plot :Madrid, 1913...
(Captain Sánchez's Crime) in 1984. The success of this production, made for TVE, compelled Producer Pedro Costa to develop a second part. In the new installment of the series, there was an episode called Los Amantes de Tetuán (The Tetuan’s lovers) the story of a real life crime committed by a couple living in the district of Tetuán de las victorias, a working class sector of Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
. The actual crime took place in the 1940s in La Canal, a small village near Burgos
Burgos
Burgos is a city of northern Spain, historic capital of Castile. It is situated at the edge of the central plateau, with about 178,966 inhabitants in the city proper and another 20,000 in its suburbs. It is the capital of the province of Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castile and León...
and so it was also dubbed as "El crimen de La Canal" (La Canal's crime).
In "El crimen de La Canal", a widow engaged in blackmailing persuaded a young man to kill his young wife. Three days later, the couple was caught and never saw each other again. They were condemned to capital punishment, still prevailing by those years in Spain, (nor even their attorney wanted to defend them). Eventually, they got their sentence commuted and they served between ten and twelve years. The widow died of a heart attack just after leaving jail, and the young man started a new, anonymous and prosperous life in Zaragoza
Zaragoza
Zaragoza , also called Saragossa in English, is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain...
.
A reinterpretation of the crime was built up during the pre-production of Los Amantes de Tetuán. The script was written by Alvaro del Amo, Carlos Perez Merinero and Vicente Aranda using some elements of the actual crime and reinventing many others to recreate the background of the characters about which little was known. The T.V project was halted from 1987 to 1990 and when the time came to start production, Los Amantes de Tetuán took a separate life from La huella del crimen. It was going to be the last chapter to be filmed because Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda , is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Due to his refined and personal style, he is one of the most renowned Spanish filmmakers. He started as a founded member of the Barcelona School of Film and became known for bringing contemporary Spanish novels to life on the...
was immersed in the making of a miniseries for TVE. By then Aranda was initially reluctant to make another production for T.V and proposed to expand the script and make it into a full feature film for the big screen. Thanks to the recent success of his miseries for T.V Los Jinetes del Alba
Los Jinetes del Alba
Riders of the Dawn is a 1990 Spanish film, written and directed by Vicente Aranda, an adaptation of a novel by Jesús Fernández Santos. It stars Victoria Abril and Jorge Sanz...
the project was approved by TVE.
The original title, Los Amantes de Tetuán, was changed to avoid confusion with the North Africa city of the same name. The events were moved from the 1940s to an unspecific time in the '50s for both economic and dramatic reasons. It was cheaper to recreate the period of the '50s and Vicente Aranda considered the '50s more appealing for modern audiences. The real life crime story was treated in the same way Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
did with the facts that inspired James M. Cain
James M. Cain
James Mallahan Cain was an American author and journalist. Although Cain himself vehemently opposed labeling, he is usually associated with the hardboiled school of American crime fiction and seen as one of the creators of the roman noir...
's novel Double Indemnity. Bigas Luna
Bigas Luna
Juan José Bigas Luna is a Spanish film director. He began his professional career in the design world, creating the Estudio Gris with Carlos Riart in 1969. In his earlier exhibitions, at the beginning of the sixties, he showed a great interest in conceptual art and the emerging visual technologies...
’s Las Edades de Lulu
The Ages of Lulu
The Ages of Lulu is a 1990 Spanish film, directed by Bigas Luna, starring Francesca Neri. Javier Bardem has a small role as a corrupt gay man, one of his first roles on screen. Ángela Molina rejected the role for the sex scenes. The film is the version of the international best-selling novel with...
, a movie seen by Aranda, inspired the eroticism
Eroticism
Eroticism is generally understood to refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse, desire, or pattern of thoughts, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality and romantic love...
of the film.
The most famous sequence of the film in which Luisa introduces a handkerchief in Paco’s anus to withdraw it in the moment of climax, was not in the script. Vicente Aranda explains:
- I told the actors that I felt something was lacking and that we needed something more explicit, a novelty. I opened a kind of contest and each one gave different options. Jorge SanzJorge SanzJorge Sanz is a Spanish actor and is one of the most prominent actors of the Spanish cinema since the 1980s. He is known to international audiences for his roles in the films: Amantes by director Vicente Aranda and Fernando Trueba’s Belle Époque .-Early life :Jorge Sanz Miranda was born on August...
came out with the idea of the handkerchief. The production was successful team collaboration. From the beginning at the preparation of the film, there was a spirit of team collaboration, something very positive that made our work fun. I don’t know why, but we all knew we were making a film that was going to be important.
The intense, tragic and beautiful climax was benefited by the weather, with a snowstorm that was not scheduled at all for the shooting, as producer, Pedro Costa, explained at the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
commentaries. That scene filmed in front of the famous Burgos Cathedral
Burgos Cathedral
The Burgos Cathedral is a Gothic-style Roman Catholic cathedral in Burgos, Spain. It is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and is famous for its vast size and unique architecture. Its construction began in 1221, and was in use nine years later, although work continued on and off for two hundred years...
was articulated around a popular Spanish Christmas carol, La Marimorena, whose traditional cheerful melody, by contrast, is changed for the score into an elegiac and sad one. The score was composed by Jose Nieto, often working with Aranda (Intruso
Intruso
Intruder is a 1993 Spanish film, written and directed by Vicente Aranda. It stars Victoria Abril, Imanol Arias and Antonio Valero. The film is a psychological thriller. A middle class woman torn between her love for her spouse and her ill ex-husband, both of them were her childhood friends...
, Celos
Celos
Jealousy is a 1999 Spanish film, written and directed by Vicente Aranda. It stars Daniel Giménez Cacho, Aitana Sanchez-Gijón, Maria Botto and Luis Tosar.-Plot:...
, Juana la Loca, Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
) and the film editor was Aranda’s regular, his wife Teresa Font.Equally noteworthy is the film’s striking cinematography by Jose Luis Alcaine, with whom Aranda had previously worked on no fewer than five films. Alcaine is especially adept at evoking the “sooty” look of Madrid winters, which combey the somber qualities of urban life during the early years of Franco’s dictatorship.
Cast
Victoria AbrilVictoria Abril
Victoria Abril is a Spanish film actress. She is best known to international audiences for her performance in the movie ¡Átame! by director Pedro Almodóvar....
, here in her ninth collaboration with Vicente Aranda, was thought of from the beginning for the role of Trini, the virginal maid, while Concha Velasco
Concha Velasco
Concepción Velasco Varona, known as Concha Velasco or Conchita Velasco, is a Spanish film actress, theatre actress, singer, and TV conductor. She was born at Valladolid November 29, 1939...
was offered the role of Luisa. When Velasco declined, Aranda deemed Victoria was mature enough to play Luisa and proposed her to switch roles and take the one of the widow. She was reluctant, saying that she saw herself more as Trini, the sacrifice maid rather than the wicked widow. Victoria Abril was pregnant, by the time she gave birth and was ready to start the film she had had a change of heart and accepted to be Luisa.
The role of Trini fell on Maribel Verdú
Maribel Verdú
Maribel Verdú is a Spanish actress. She is known to English-speaking audiences for playing Luisa in the 2001 film Y tu mamá también and Mercedes in Guillermo del Toro's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth. In Spain she is known for films such as Belle Époque, Tetro, and Huevos de oro.Verdú was born María...
, a young actress who had made her film debut with Aranda in El Crimen del Capitán Sánchez
El Crimen del Capitán Sánchez
Captain Sánchez’s Crime is a 1985 Spanish drama film, made for TV in 16 mm and directed by Vicente Aranda. It stars Fernado Guillén, Victoria Abril and José Cerro. The film is based on a real crime which occurred in Madrid in 1913.-Plot :Madrid, 1913...
(Captain Sánchez's crime) in 1984, as younger sister of Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril is a Spanish film actress. She is best known to international audiences for her performance in the movie ¡Átame! by director Pedro Almodóvar....
who was the leading actress of that film. Maribel Verdú
Maribel Verdú
Maribel Verdú is a Spanish actress. She is known to English-speaking audiences for playing Luisa in the 2001 film Y tu mamá también and Mercedes in Guillermo del Toro's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth. In Spain she is known for films such as Belle Époque, Tetro, and Huevos de oro.Verdú was born María...
, whose artistic culmen maybe is Ricardo Franco
Ricardo Franco
Ricardo Franco was a Spanish screenwriter and film director.- Biography :Nephew of Jesús Franco. He died at 49 years old when he filmed Lágrimas negras....
's 1997 La Buena Estrella
La Buena Estrella
La Buena Estrella is a 1997 Spanish film directed by Ricardo Franco and starring Antonio Resines, Jordi Mollá and Maribel Verdú. Critically acclaimed, the film won five Goya Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor , Best Original script and Best Original Music...
is better known internationally for her roles in Alfonso Cuarón
Alfonso Cuarón
Alfonso Cuarón Orozco is a Mexican film director, screenwriter and film producer, best known for his films Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Y tu mamá también, and A Little Princess.- Early life :...
’s Y tu mamá también
Y tu mamá también
Y tu mamá también is a 2001 Mexican comedy-drama film directed by Alfonso Cuarón, and co-written by Cuarón and his brother Carlos. The film is a coming-of-age story about two teenage boys taking a road trip with a woman in her late twenties; it stars Mexican actors Diego Luna and Gael García...
and in Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist and designer. He is mostly known for his acclaimed films, Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy film franchise. He is a frequent collaborator with Ron Perlman, Federico Luppi and Doug Jones...
's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth is a 2006 Spanish Spanish-language dark fantasy film, written and directed by Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro. It was produced and distributed by the Mexican film company Esperanto Films...
.
At first, Aranda thought about Antonio Banderas
Antonio Banderas
José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...
as Paco, but the actor had already undertaken Arne Glimcher
Arne Glimcher
Arnold "Arne" Glimcher is an American art dealer, film producer and director. He is the founder of The Pace Gallery and is widely known as one of the art world's most powerful dealers. Glimcher has also produced and directed several films, including The Mambo Kings and Just Cause.-Life and...
's The Mambo Kings
The Mambo Kings
The Mambo Kings is a 1992 drama film starring Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas. Directed by Arne Glimcher in his directorial debut, the film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos...
, and the role was assigned to Jorge Sanz
Jorge Sanz
Jorge Sanz is a Spanish actor and is one of the most prominent actors of the Spanish cinema since the 1980s. He is known to international audiences for his roles in the films: Amantes by director Vicente Aranda and Fernando Trueba’s Belle Époque .-Early life :Jorge Sanz Miranda was born on August...
. He is perhaps best known to English-speaking audiences playing the roles of the young soldier who falls in love with four sisters in Belle Époque (film)
Belle Epoque (film)
Belle Époque is a 1992 Spanish film directed by Fernando Trueba. The title derives from the period in French history known as the Belle Époque .-Plot:...
the Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
winner as a foreign film in 1993. Sanz had won a Goya Award as best actor for Aranda’s Si te dicen que Caí
If They Tell You I Fell
If They Tell You I Fell is a 1989 Spanish film written and directed by Vicente Aranda, starring Jorge Sanz and Victoria Abril. The film is an adaptation of the novel of the same title by Catalan author Juan Marsé. Set mostly in the old quarter of 1940's Barcelona, the film centers in a young rag...
, a film which starred Victoria Abril. The three lead actors of Amantes had been together before in Vicente Aranda’s previous project, Los Jinetes del Alba
Los Jinetes del Alba
Riders of the Dawn is a 1990 Spanish film, written and directed by Vicente Aranda, an adaptation of a novel by Jesús Fernández Santos. It stars Victoria Abril and Jorge Sanz...
, in another love triangle.
- Victoria AbrilVictoria AbrilVictoria Abril is a Spanish film actress. She is best known to international audiences for her performance in the movie ¡Átame! by director Pedro Almodóvar....
- Luisa - Jorge SanzJorge SanzJorge Sanz is a Spanish actor and is one of the most prominent actors of the Spanish cinema since the 1980s. He is known to international audiences for his roles in the films: Amantes by director Vicente Aranda and Fernando Trueba’s Belle Époque .-Early life :Jorge Sanz Miranda was born on August...
- Paco - Maribel VerdúMaribel VerdúMaribel Verdú is a Spanish actress. She is known to English-speaking audiences for playing Luisa in the 2001 film Y tu mamá también and Mercedes in Guillermo del Toro's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth. In Spain she is known for films such as Belle Époque, Tetro, and Huevos de oro.Verdú was born María...
- Trini - Enrique Cerro - commandant)
- Mabel Escaño - commandant’s wife
- Alicia Agut -Trini’s mother
- Jose Cerro - Minuta
- Gabriel Latorre - Gordo
- Saturnino Garcia - Pueblerino
Themes
One of the main themes of Amantes is the destructive potential of obsessive passion and sexual desire a topic further explore by Aranda in La Pasion TurcaLa Pasión Turca
The Turkish Passion is a 1994 Spanish film, written and directed by Vicente Aranda adapted from a popular novel by Antonio Gala. It stars Ana Belén and Georges Corraface. The film is an erotic drama, an exploration of female sexual desire. Highly controversial, La Pasion Turca continues Spanish...
(1994). Amantes forms with Intruso
Intruso
Intruder is a 1993 Spanish film, written and directed by Vicente Aranda. It stars Victoria Abril, Imanol Arias and Antonio Valero. The film is a psychological thriller. A middle class woman torn between her love for her spouse and her ill ex-husband, both of them were her childhood friends...
(1993) and Celos
Celos
Jealousy is a 1999 Spanish film, written and directed by Vicente Aranda. It stars Daniel Giménez Cacho, Aitana Sanchez-Gijón, Maria Botto and Luis Tosar.-Plot:...
(1999) a trilogy of films about love as uncontrollable passion that ends tragically. These three films directed by Vicente Aranda are loosely based in real crime stories.
Analysis
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Trini is the traditionally stoically self-sacrificing embodiment of catholic Spain versus the modern vision of a newly emerging industrialized Spain, incarnated in Luisa who is identified with the city and with the iconography of foreign culture (Kimonos, Christmas tree ornaments), representing the modernizing version of Spain . Though the narrative eventually cast Luisa as the heartless instigator of Trini’s murder, she can also be perceived as a rebel against the oppression of a macho culture while Paco, a traditional tragic film noir hero, is turned into a murderer by the two women who love him.
Despise being positioned as the opposing stereotypes of virgin and whore; Trini and Luisa are equally passionate and strong willed. Both are frequently robed in blue, a color feature in traditional pictorial representations of the virgin, and Trini takes with her a painting of the Immaculate Conception
Immaculate Conception
The Immaculate Conception of Mary is a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, according to which the Virgin Mary was conceived without any stain of original sin. It is one of the four dogmata in Roman Catholic Mariology...
and hangs it in the hotel room just before her death. While Luisa directs her violent passions outwards, confessing to Paco that she murdered her husband, Trini turns them inwards on herself, following in the footsteps of her lame mother who threw herself in front of a cart after learning of her husband ‘s infidelity . Just as Luisa forced Paco to take hold of his penis in their pursuits of pleasure; Trini coerces him to wield the razor that will release her from pain.
The sexual scenes of the film are designed to underscore the female domination of the male; even in terms of his sexual identity . Amantes forcefully depicts the subversive power of Luisa’s sexuality. From the moment she opened the door to Paco, wearing a colorful dark blue robe and draped with glittering streamers she is using to decorate a Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
tree, Luisa appears as a profane alternative to the Madonna. Her body substitutes for the Christmas tree and all of its religious symbolism, offering eroticism in place of religious ecstasy. Not only she is the sexual subject who actively pursues her own desire and who first seduces Paco, but she continues to control the lovemaking. In a graphic sex scene, we see her penetrating his anus with a silk handkerchief and then withdrawing it in the moments of ecstasy. Despite her sexually dominating her young lover, Luisa remains loving and emotionally vulnerable. Paco response not only makes him obsessed, but he rejects the more traditional passive sexuality of his fiancé Trini.
The murder scene is remarkable for its understated approach. Stage on a bench in front of the cathedral of Burgos
Burgos
Burgos is a city of northern Spain, historic capital of Castile. It is situated at the edge of the central plateau, with about 178,966 inhabitants in the city proper and another 20,000 in its suburbs. It is the capital of the province of Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castile and León...
(the small town of Aranda del Duero in the film), the murder retains the aura of Christian ritual, especially since the minimalist representation of violence is limited to a few close-up of the victim’s barefoot and a few drops of bright red blood falling on the pure white snow. Earlier, Paco had sat on the same bench praying, observed by a beautiful young mother who was carrying a bright blue umbrella and tying the shoelace of her young son, a symbolic Madonna who seems to foresee the murder .
In the final scene, Paco goes to the train station to find Luisa. Pressing his bloody hands against the window, he draws her off the train for a final murderous embrace, a shot that is held, then blurs and finally freezes, signifying the triumph of their passion.
A printed epilogue delivers the ironic moralizing punch line to the narrative. Three days later, Paco and Luisa were arrested in Valladolid (a city well known for its right-wing sentiments) and they never saw each other again.
Amantes and other films
Amantes has elements from Double Indemnity; Luisa also frequently wears dark glasses like the character played by Barbara StanwyckBarbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
in that Film. There are similarities to François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
’s La Femme d'à côté
La Femme d'à côté
The Woman Next Door is a 1981 French film directed by François Truffaut. The film was the 39th highest grossing film of the year with a total of 1,087,600 admissions in France. -Plot:...
, another amour fou film in which a lame older woman own story foretells the tragic ends.
Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda , is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Due to his refined and personal style, he is one of the most renowned Spanish filmmakers. He started as a founded member of the Barcelona School of Film and became known for bringing contemporary Spanish novels to life on the...
’s cold style to unrestrained passions has also being compare to the similar approach to passion in Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
’s films. The American movie To Die For
To Die For
To Die For is a 1995 dark comedy film, made in a mockumentary format, directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Buck Henry, based on the novel of the same name by Joyce Maynard, which in turn was based on the Pamela Smart story. It stars Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, and Joaquin Phoenix...
that was inspired by the Pamela Smart
Pamela Smart
Pamela Ann Smart is serving a life sentence for accomplice to first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and witness tampering in New Hampshire...
case, the most famous crime in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
history, was compared to the similar plot of Amantes.
Reception
Amantes opened in February 1991 at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival41st Berlin International Film Festival
The 41st annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from February 15 to 26, 1991.-Jury:* Volker Schlöndorff * Chantal Akerman* Laurie Anderson* José Luis Borau* Judith Godrèche* Yuri Klepikov* Renate Krößner* Gillo Pontecorvo...
where Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril
Victoria Abril is a Spanish film actress. She is best known to international audiences for her performance in the movie ¡Átame! by director Pedro Almodóvar....
won the Silver Bear for Best Actress
Silver Bear for Best Actress
The Silver Bear for Best Actress is the Berlin International Film Festival's award for achievement in performance by an actress.-Awards:- External links :*...
. In Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
it was a great success with critics and audiences and won two Goya Awards
Goya Awards
The Goya Awards, known in Spanish as los Premios Goya, are Spain's main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards....
including Best Film and Best director.
Amantes was the first of Aranda’s films to get an American release, opening in March 1992 becoming an important art house hit, getting more than one and a half million dollars at the box-office. The movie shocked audiences because of the frankness of its sex scenes.
The film remains Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda , is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Due to his refined and personal style, he is one of the most renowned Spanish filmmakers. He started as a founded member of the Barcelona School of Film and became known for bringing contemporary Spanish novels to life on the...
’s best-regarded work; he explains “ Whenever someone wants to flatter me, they bring up the subject of Amantes. I haven’t been able to make a film that takes its place.
Awards and nominations
- Two Goya AwardsGoya AwardsThe Goya Awards, known in Spanish as los Premios Goya, are Spain's main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards....
: Best Film and Best Director. (1992) - Berlin Film Festival41st Berlin International Film FestivalThe 41st annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from February 15 to 26, 1991.-Jury:* Volker Schlöndorff * Chantal Akerman* Laurie Anderson* José Luis Borau* Judith Godrèche* Yuri Klepikov* Renate Krößner* Gillo Pontecorvo...
– Best Actress (Victoria AbrilVictoria AbrilVictoria Abril is a Spanish film actress. She is best known to international audiences for her performance in the movie ¡Átame! by director Pedro Almodóvar....
) 1991 - Flanders International Film Festival (1991) Special Mention Maribel VerdúMaribel VerdúMaribel Verdú is a Spanish actress. She is known to English-speaking audiences for playing Luisa in the 2001 film Y tu mamá también and Mercedes in Guillermo del Toro's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth. In Spain she is known for films such as Belle Époque, Tetro, and Huevos de oro.Verdú was born María...
- Two ADIRCAE Awards: Best Actress 9 Victoria Abril ) Best Director ( Vicente Aranda) 1991
- Fotogramas de Plata: Best Film 1992
- Mystfest; Best Film 1991
- Ondas Awards : Best Film; best acting (Maribel Verdu) 1991
- Sant Jordi Awards ; Best Film 1992