dry grass singing

the making of "the adventures of a horny widow"

Torremolinos 73
Director: Pablo Berger

Following my grand karmic tradition of watching films about porn films with guy friends (two movies do not a karmic tradition make, i hear some wetblanket intone, and in the name of Hyperbolic-Writing promptly silence the voice with a disapproving glare), i approached Spanish film Torremolinos 73 with some trepidation. The last time i'd seen one of these self-reflexive films-about-porn-films, the movie (Boogie Nights - more on that one some other time) left such a bad taste in my mouth that i swore never to inflict such an experience on myself again. And now, here i was, not only doing exactly what i'd determined never to do again, but imposing a possibly painful two hours on some poor bloke who probably had even less of an idea of what he was getting into than i did.

Fortunately, what we were both getting into was a gem of a film that is as sweet as it is hilarious, and that is even more about love and family than it is about sex and the porn industry. But above all it is a loving tribute to the art of cinema - with a tongue-in-cheek sideswipe at the cheesy Seventies, complete with campy disco lights and even campier music.

Plotwise, the movie is so zany it borders on farce. The basic premise: Alfredo, an encyclopaedia salesman and his wife Carmen find themselves in an ethical quandary when Alfredo is given an ultimatum by his boss - make documentary films for the World Audiovisual Encyclopaedia of Human Reproduction, or get fired. Faced with impending pauperdom, the couple finally give in to the fact that 'integrity buay sai jia eh' (literally, 'integrity cannot eat one', as some of my guy friends put it), and agree to take on the job of making soft-porn films for the Scandinavian market. This bold enterprise takes the decidedly ordinary couple where they have never gone before, with Alfredo developing a passion for film-making and finding a new hero in legendary director Ingmar Bergman, and Carmen becoming a soft-porn movie star in Scandinavia. Alfredo's obsessive ambitions soon reach epic proportions when he decides to direct his own feature-length tribute to Bergman called 'Torremolinos 73', with Carmen in the starring role. Real life, however, fails to live up to his dreams. Caught between the realities of commercial interests and Carmen's longing to have children, Alfredo finds himself making the most difficult decision of his life - and it is here that the film reaches its poignant and comically bizarre climax.

Filmed entirely in the grainy, slightly ill-defined cinematic style of the Seventies, the film has a quirky charm deriving from the distinct sense we get that the story is being told by a camera with a personality. In most films, we are aware, if at all, of the camera as simply a narrative device. Seldom does this awareness develop into the feeling that there is an active, intelligent, wryly humorous consciousness directing our attention and response to everything onscreen - everything from the opening shots of Alfredo labouring up the stairs (the lift under maintenance, as luck would have it) only to have doors slammed repeatedly in his face by his potential clients, to the hilariously solemn footage of Carmen fastidiously folding her clothes and placing them neatly on a chair even as she is being taught the art of strip-tease by a Scandinavian porn-star.

All art speaks to us as individuals at specific points in our lives. Perhaps if i were to watch this again, say, in ten years' time, i would see it as a study of a loving marriage troubled by circumstances beyond the couple's control. At this moment, however, what strikes a chord is the film's exploration of the cost of passionately and single-mindedly pursuing a dream. Something has to give, somewhere. In the movie, what gives when Alfredo becomes increasingly obsessed with film-making is his relationship with his wife, and that it all works out in the end is probably due more to the rules of the comic genre rather than to a truly satisfactory resolution of the tensions and dilemmas faced by Alfredo and Carmen.

Food for thought, perhaps, for those of us chasing after our private rainbows.

posted by eothen @ 1:53 AM