The House of the Spirits is a 1993 German-Danish-Portuguese dramatic film starring Jeremy Irons

Jeremy Irons

Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...

, Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...

, Glenn Close

Glenn Close

Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...

, Winona Ryder

Winona Ryder

Winona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...

 and Antonio Banderas

Antonio Banderas

José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...

. The supporting cast includes Vanessa Redgrave

Vanessa Redgrave

Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...

, María Conchita Alonso

Maria Conchita Alonso

María Conchita Alonso , better known as María Conchita, is a Venezuelan Grammy Award-nominated singer and actress.- Early life :...

, Armin Mueller-Stahl

Armin Mueller-Stahl

Armin Mueller-Stahl is a German film actor, painter, writer and musician.-Early life:Mueller-Stahl was born in Tilsit, East Prussia...

 and Jan Niklas

Jan Niklas

Jan Niklas is a German actor. He is best known for playing in TV films such as Peter The Great, Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna and Anne Frank: The Whole Story. He also played in the Hungarian film Colonel Redl which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.-Early life:Jan...

. It was directed by Bille August

Bille August

Bille August is a Danish Academy Award winning film and television director. His film Pelle the Conqueror from 1987 won the Palme D'or, Academy Award and Golden Globe. He is one of the very few directors to win the Palme D'or twice, winning the prestigious award again in 1991 for The Best...

 and based on the Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende Llona is a Chilean writer with American citizenship. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is famous for novels such as The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts , which have been commercially successful...

 novel La Casa de los Espíritus

The House of the Spirits

The House of the Spirits is the debut novel by Isabel Allende. Initially, the novel was rejected by several Spanish-language publishers, but became an instant best seller when published in Barcelona in 1982. The novel was critically acclaimed around the world, and catapulted Allende to literary...

, about the life of a young lady named Clara during the military dictatorship in Chile.

Principal photography took place in Denmark, but some scenes were filmed in Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

 and Alentejo, Portugal. It won awards at the Bavarian Film Awards, German Film Awards, Golden Screen (Germany), Havana Film Festival

Havana Film Festival

The Havana Film Festival is a Cuban festival that focuses on the promotion of Spanish-language filmmakers. It is also known in Spanish as Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana, and in English as Festival of New Latinamerican Cinema of La Havana.The festival takes place...

, and Robert Festival (Denmark), as well as from the German Phono Academy and the Guild of German Art House Cinemas.

Prologue

At the beginning of the movie, we see a young woman arrive at a house with an old man. She leads him in the house and sits him on a chair, where he asks to be alone. The young woman sits down on the stairs, close to where a little girl is playing. The young woman starts pondering about life, and soon begins to narrate a story.

Clara and Esteban

The woman states her mother, Clara Del Valle, knew that she was in love with Esteban Trueba the first time she saw him, even though she was still a child. However, Esteban Trueba (Jeremy Irons

Jeremy Irons

Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...

), had come to propose to Rosa the Beautiful, Clara's sister. As he is rather poor, Esteban leaves his fiancée with her family to earn some money for the wedding first.

Clara has special telekinetic powers and can sometimes foresee the future. One day, she has a vision and tells her sister Rosa that there will be a death in the family. The next day, Rosa dies from poisoning. It is figured out that Rosa drank a poisoned drink meant for her father Severo. Clara blames herself for her sister's death and decides never to speak again after watching her sister's autopsy.

Esteban arrives heartbroken at the funeral. At home, his sister Férula (Glenn Close

Glenn Close

Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...

) confronts him saying that he has to work to support her and their sick mother. Esteban leaves for his newly bought hacienda Tres Marias. He finds many natives living on his land and tells them to work for him for food and shelter. For the next twenty years, Esteban makes Tres Marias an example of a successful hacienda. However, he also rapes the peasant girl Pancha Garcia (Sarita Choudhury

Sarita Choudhury

Sarita Catherine Louise Choudhury is an English actress.-Biography:Choudhury was born in Blackheath, London, England, of half Bengali-Indian and half English descent. Her parents, Prabhas Chandra Choudhury, a scientist, and Julia Patricia Spring, married in 1964 in Lucea, Jamaica...

) who is working for him. Meanwhile, Clara lives in her own world of fantasy with her family.

One day, twenty years later, Esteban receives a letter stating his mother has died. After her funeral, Esteban decides to ask for Clara's hand, despite Férula telling him Clara is too sickly and won't take care of him. When he shows up at the Del Valle family's house, Clara (Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...

) asks him right away if he has come to ask her to marry him, thus speaking again for the first time in twenty years. Esteban confirms he is there to marry Clara, and the two go out for a walk.

Férula meets Clara at a coffee shop to talk to her about her own future, and Clara, already knowing about Férula's worries where to live, promises her that she can live with her and Esteban in Tres Marias after the wedding. Férula is overwhelmed with happiness realising that she has found a friend in her new sister-in-law.

Some time later, Férula goes to church to confess that she has strange feelings for Clara. She reports uneasiness when Clara sleeps with Esteban, and also fierce dedication to her sister-in-law. She realises that she is feeling much more for Clara than she should. Esteban senses this and is resentful of Férula's interference in his family.

Clara's parents are killed in a terrible accident on the way to visit their pregnant daughter. Clara soon after gives birth to a girl, named Blanca, as she predicted. Some years later, Pancha Garcia appears at the family house with her and Esteban's bastard teenage son, Esteban Garcia. She asks for money and tells Esteban Trueba the he cannot get rid of her and his son. Esteban Trueba is very annoyed and goes back to play with Blanca (Hannah Taylor-Gordon

Hannah Taylor-Gordon

Hannah Taylor-Gordon is an English actress. She made her film debut in the 1993 movie The House of the Spirits. She is known for her role as Anne Frank in the TV miniseries Anne Frank: The Whole Story for which she received both an Emmy and a Golden Globe nomination...

). Esteban Garcia comes back to the house later when no one is looking. He finds the child Blanca and begins to molest her. Férula calls Blanca's name and Esteban Garcia leaves running.

Clara has been giving classes to the peasant children and Blanca. Pedro Tercero, the little son of the peasant Segundo at Tres Marias befriends Blanca, and after school she goes out to play with him. The two are gone for hours, and Esteban Trueba, Férula and Clara start worrying. The two children are eventually found playing in the lagoon. Esteban Trueba doesn't like that his daughter playing with a peasant boy, and decides to send Blanca to a boarding school.

Blanca and Pedro Tercero

The next scene has Blanca, who is now the same woman from the prologue, talking. She says that she had been separated from Pedro Tercero a long time, but now she had graduated, they can finally be together. The grown up Blanca (Winona Ryder

Winona Ryder

Winona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...

) is coming home to Três Marias in a car, with graduation vests on. At night, Blanca goes out to the lagoon where she meets the grown up Pedro Tercero (Antonio Banderas

Antonio Banderas

José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...

). They kiss, talk and Blanca leaves.
That night while Esteban goes to a political party, there is an earthquake, and Férula climbs into bed with Clara. When Esteban sees this, he is so angry that he throws Férula out of the house telling her never to step close to his family again. Clara overhears him threatening his sister and feels sad and disappointed about it.

Some time later, Esteban brings the French count de Satigny to his home whom he wants to marry Blanca. While Satigny is still visiting, Esteban catches Pedro preaching revolutionary ideas to the peasant people. He punishes him with a fierce whipping and banishing him from Tres Marias.

At dinner, Férula suddenly appears. She walks into the house, kisses Clara on the forehead and leaves again. Clara tells them that Férula is dead. Clara and Esteban drive into town and are brought to Férula's poor house by a priest. There they find Férula dead on the bed.

Pedro has returned to Tres Marias talking to the peasants about their rights and nearly gets shot by Esteban. That night, the count de Satigny, who is visiting again, watches Blanca and Pedro meeting secretly at the lagoon. He reveals Blanca's lover to her father who immediately drags Blanca back to the house. He promises to kill Pedro; when Clara argues with him about it, he hits his wife and she falls. When Clara rises, she coldly tells him that she will never speak to him again. Clara moves with Blanca to her parents' house in the capital.

Meanwhile, Esteban is alone in Três Marias. He blames Pedro for everything, and is offering a reward for whoever can take him to Pedro's hiding place. Esteban Garcia (Vincent Gallo

Vincent Gallo

Vincent Gallo is an Italian-American film director and actor. Though he has had minor roles in mainstream films such as Goodfellas, he is most associated with independent movies, including Buffalo '66, which he wrote, directed, did the music for and starred in; The Brown Bunny, which he also...

), Esteban Trueba's bastard son, states he can take him to Pedro's hiding place. Garcia takes Esteban to Pedro, and Esteban tries to kill Pedro, unsuccessfully. When Garcia asks for his reward, Esteban Trueba replies that traitors don't get rewards. Garcia walks away angrily.

Blanca eventually finds out she is pregnant. Esteban then tries to force a wedding between the count de Satigny and Blanca, so as to not have any bastards in the family. He tries to convince his daughter by telling her that Pedro Tercero is dead. Blanca angrily refuses, but her mother eventually comforts her by telling her that Pedro is still alive.

Revolution

Some years later, Esteban who has become an old man is busy with his political career but seems to be rather lonely. He comes to Clara's and Blanca's house to apologize. He asks Clara to let him stay with her and to show him his granddaughter Alba whom he has never seen before.

He moves in with them but Clara still does not talk to him and he constantly keeps feuding with Blanca. While the family is celebrating Alba's birthday, Esteban Garcia knocks on the door. Blanca answers, not recognizing the man who abused her as a child. Garcia asks to talk to Esteban Trueba. Esteban Trueba is asked by his bastard son to help him get into the military academy. He reminds Trueba of the reward he never got and Trueba gives him a cheque.

The election is on, and Esteban still believes that his Conservative Party will win as usual. Later on, the People's Front wins the election. While Esteban grieves, Blanca goes out on the street to celebrate and to meet Pedro. The two kiss and celebrate together for the rest of the night. A few days later, Pedro is able to meet his daughter Alba for the first time with her mother at an ice-cream parlour. Blanca and Pedro are able to meet regularly now, and things seem to be perfect.

While Alba and her grandmother Clara are setting up a Christmas tree, Clara feels she is leaving this world, and decides to prepare for death. She gives Alba notebooks and jewelry to give to Blanca. Kissing Alba goodbye, Clara dies. When Blanca and Esteban arrive in a car, Alba goes out to tell them grandma is dead. The three hug and cry together.

However, conspiracy on part of the Conservative Party eventually leads up to the coup d'état

Coup d'état

A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

. Although Esteban seems happy, believing it is for the good of the country and that the military will hand the power back to the Conservative Party, he proves himself wrong. The military does not hand the power back, and a Military Dictatorship is started. People related to the People's Party are captured or even killed. Blanca is highly involved, and eventually the Political Police comes to arrest her for being with Pedro Tercero. Blanca asks her father to hide Pedro in their house and to help him getting out of the country.

Blanca is tortured and abused by her half-brother Esteban Garcia, now an important member of the military. She nevertheless refuses to reveal where Pedro is. She is put in a cell, where Clara's spirit appears to tell her not to wish for death.

Esteban attends to his daughter's wishes and helps Pedro Tercero to find exile in Canada. Esteban then tries to get Blanca out of prison and desperately asks an old prostitute friend of his, now an influential lady, to help get Blanca out. She succeeds and one morning a beaten and dirty Blanca arrives at the house. Esteban is shocked to see his daughter in such a state and realises what he has done.

Epilogue

The movie ends with the opening scene, Blanca and Esteban returning to Tres Marias with Alba. There Esteban is finally visited by Clara's spirit who comes to help him die.

Blanca sits outside and ponders on her life. To her, life now is Pedro and Alba, and while Alba plays in the front door with the leaves swirling in the wind, the movie ends.

Differences Between the Movie and the Novel

• Clara did not fall in love with Esteban the first time she saw him. In the book, in fact, she says she never loved him at all.
• In the novel, it is stated Clara was the fifteenth child of her parents, of which eleven were alive. However, in the film, Clara's only mentioned sister is Rosa.
• Nana, Clara's nanny as a child and later nanny to her children, is not named or mentioned in the movie. The Del Valle's unnamed Indian servant plays some of her roles in the book.
• Clara's idol Uncle Marcos is also not mentioned at all in the movie.
• Esteban's hacienda was a family heritage.
• In the book, Esteban stays at Tres Marías 9 years, rather than 20.
• Pancha Garcia, the woman Esteban raped, was sister to Segundo in the book. This is not mentioned in the movie. Esteban also raped many other women during his stay in Las Tres Marías, and even after his marriage. This is not mentioned either.
• Clara's powers in the movie differ from the book, where she can also talk to ghosts.
• In the book, Esteban and Clara go on a honeymoon after marrying, and move into a house in the capital, not Las Tres Marías. Later, when going to spend a summer at Tres Marías, Clara likes it and decides to stay.
• Clara is not supposed to know about her parent's death in the book, as Esteban believes it will threaten her pregnancy, but she find out in a dream, whereas in the movie she is quickly told.
• Clara also has two twin sons in the book, Jaime and Nicolás.
• Nicolás had a lover in the book named Amanda, with whom Jaime was also in love. Amanda was absent from the movie.
• Esteban García, Esteban's bastard son, hardly has a role in the novel. It is Esteban's bastard grandson (also named Esteban García) who has the important role.
• Pedro Tercero plays the guitar in the book, and sings a song about the Chickens and the Fox. In the movie, the song is transformed into a story he tells at Clara's school, and he does not play the guitar.
• Blanca is not sent to a boarding school in the book: instead, Esteban and Clara move back to the capital, where Blanca spends the year, going to Las Tres Marías for summer. During her teenage years, after an earthquake which causes her parents to stay in Las Tres Marías, Blanca, now in a boarding school, fakes an illness so she can go live in Las Tres Marías too.
• The tremendous earthquake that happens in Las Tres Marías and cause some 10000 casualties in the whole country is absent from the movie.
• In the book, Clara and Blanca move to the capital house after Esteban hits Clara, not Clara's parents' house.
• Esteban's revenge towards Pedro Tercero in the book is partially successful: he manages to cut off three of Pedro's fingers.
• Blanca actually does marry the Count Jean de Satigny in the book, but leaves his house still pregnant when she discovers his tendency towards homosexuality and his love towards pornography
  Pornography
  Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
  
  , especially using the Indian servants.
• Alba is born in Clara's capital house, and Clara predicts good luck and happiness in her future.
• It is Alba and not Blanca who is pampered by Esteban.
• Esteban Garcia's abuses of Blanca as a child happen to Alba in the actual novel. He also kisses her forcefully in the mouth at her fourteenth birthday, when coming to ask for Esteban to give him a reference to get into the military.
• Blanca and Pedro manage to meet before the People's Party win in the book.
• In the book, Alba is introduced to her father earlier, but knows him only as her mother's lover and a good friend, believing the count to be her father.
• In the novel, Alba is a teenager during the Coup, and is going to university, while in the movie she is a child.
• Miguel, Amanda's brother and later Alba's lover, who is a revolutionist, is absent in the movie.
• Alba participates in various revolutionist manifestations before and after the Coup, due to her link with Miguel. Blanca, in the novel, has little interest in these.
• Alba is arrested by the Political Police for dating Miguel, and is tortured and abused by Esteban Garcia in the novel. She then wishes for death, and Clara's spirit comes to tell her not to. She is later released with the help of an old prostitute. This whole sequence happens to Blanca in the movie, with the difference that she is arrested for dating Pedro Tercero.
• In the novel, Blanca and Pedro Tercero leave for Canada alone, Alba does not come with them. In the movie Pedro Tercero goes to Canada alone: Blanca will reach him only after Esteban's death, and Alba will go with her mother.
• In the novel, Esteban dies in the capital house, with Alba by his side, confusing her with Clara and Rosa, instead of alone in Las Tres Marías with Clara's spirit.
• Alba is pregnant at the end of the novel, but she doesn't know if the child is Miguel's or Esteban Garcia's. Blanca's character in the movie, who takes over most of Alba's role, is not pregnant and decides to leave the nation, whereas Alba, in the novel, wants to remain until she can.

The main difference is that Alba's role is minimized, and Blanca takes over most of that role:

• Being pampered by Esteban Trueba as a child.
• Being abused by Esteban Garcia as a child.
• Being involved in the rebel and revolutionist demonstrations due to a romantic link.
• Being arrested because of said romantic link.
• Being tortured and abused by Esteban Garcia, to be later released with the help of the old prostitute.

However, Blanca also plays her novel role in the movie such as:

• Her involvement with Pedro.
• The fight she has with her father and that makes him slap Clara.
• The bastard child she has.
• Meeting Pedro as a lover.
• Hiding Pedro during the Coup, and later going into exile with him.

This combination of two roles into Blanca was probably done to shorten the movie in length.

Soundtrack

Two songs appear in the film: "La Paloma

La Paloma

This article is about the song. For the American city, see La Paloma, Texas."La Paloma" is a popular song, having been produced and reinterpreted in diverse cultures, settings, arrangements, and recordings over the last 140 years. The song was composed and written by Spanish composer Sebastián...

", a Spanish–Cuban–Mexican tune sung by popular Chilean singer Rosita Serrano

Rosita Serrano

Rosita Serrano was a Chilean singer who had her biggest success in Nazi Germany between the 1930s and the early 1940s. Because of her bell-like voice and pitch-perfect whistling she received the nickname Chilenische Nachtigall .Rosita Serano was born in Viña del Mar, Chile on 10 June 1914...

; and "La Cumparsita

La Cumparsita

"La cumparsita" is a musical piece written by Gerardo Matos Rodríguez, an Uruguayan musician, in 1916. It is among the most famous and recognizable tango songs of all time....

", a classic Uruguayan tango tune performed by German bandleader Adalbert Lutter and his orchestra.