Victoria Abril Movies
One of Europe's most popular and respected actresses, Victoria Abril has made her mark in more than 60 films produced in France, Italy, and her native Spain. First introduced to American audiences through the work of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who directed her in the controversial Atame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, 1990), the sensual, brown-eyed actress has gained a Stateside cult following, but remains thoroughly European in her choice of films and the roles she plays.Abril first earned wide recognition in Spain as a 14-year-old model on the popular television shows Uno, dos, tres, responda otra vez and 625 lineas. Born Victoria Merida Rojas in Malaga on July 4, 1959, she began studying as a ballet dancer at the age of seven, but following her celebrated turn on TV, segued into acting in the mid-'70s. Abril made her major screen debut in Vincente Aranda's Cambio de Sexo, a 1976 drama that cast her as an effeminate young man who undergoes a sex change. That same year, the actress made her first English-language film, Robin and Marian, in which she played the relatively minor role of a Spanish queen. She went on to do prolific work for the rest of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s, and in 1990 had her first collaboration with Almodóvar, for whom she starred as a drug-addicted porn actress taken hostage by an obsessive fan (Antonio Banderas) in Atame!. The film was a success in Spain -- where Abril earned a Goya Best Actress nomination for her performance -- and proved to be a controversial sensation in the States, where its plot outraged certain feminist groups. Abril collaborated with Almodóvar on two more films, Tacones Lejanos (1991) -- in which she played the estranged daughter of an actress (Marisa Paredes), and Kika (1993) -- in which she had a supporting role as an over-the-top tabloid TV program hostess.
Abril scored particular critical acclaim as a darkly amorous landlady in Vincente Aranda's Amantes (1991), winning a Best Actress Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance. Further acclaim came her way with Nadie Hablara de Nosotras Cuando Hayamos Muerto (1995), for which her portrayal of an alcoholic prostitute earned her a Goya and a Best Actress award at the San Sebastian Film Festival. A starring role in the French romantic comedy Gazon Maudit (1995), which cast her as a housewife torn between her unfaithful husband and a butch female truck driver, further increased Abril's popularity. She continued to star in films that emphasized her playful, flamboyant sexuality, maintaining her reputation as one of Europe's most colorful and vibrant performers. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
- 1988
Bayard (Remi Martin) is a lowly squire who joins the army of King Charles (Patrick Timsit) after he is rejected by the noblewoman Blanche de Savoie (Anne-Gisel Glass). Bellabre (Gerard Jugnot) is the army captain who trains Bayard for the proposed invasion of Naples. Bayard returns a conquering hero to win the heart of Blanche, who defies the newly crowned King Louis XII (Martin Lamotte) and the Machiavellian Scottomayor (Roland Giraud) to marry her heroic soldier. Sight gags and parodies abound in this comedy that contains some of the grim humor of Monte Python And The Holy Grail. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gérard Jugnot, Remi Martin, (more)
- 1987
Director Felix Rotaeta adapted the screenplay of Placer de Matar from own novel. Victoria Abril, who was incredibly busy when the film was made in 1987, plays the leading role (she wasn't exactly the heroine), while Berta Riaza costars as her mother. It's a thriller with plot twists aplenty; to give away too much would be to spoil the surprises. Here's a hint: the film's English-language title is The Pleasure of Killing. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Antonio Banderas, Mathieu Carrière, (more)
Policemen everywhere are sometimes lampooned for their self-importance and pomposity, and it is not unusual for a particularly impudent thief to become a national hero. However, Spain's Guardia Civil in the 1960s were an unusually self-righteous lot, and the otherwise not particularly edifying real-life exploits of the young thief Eleuterio Sanchez, nicknamed "El Lute," thrilled the nation. This crime adventure drama retells his story. After being arrested for a robbery gone bad, the young thief refuses to finger his partners in crime even under torture. Despite this, they are rounded up and executed for the murder they committed while robbing a jewelry store. El Lute received a commutation from General Franco, and was on his way to prison when he escaped, eluding a nationwide manhunt for several weeks despite having a broken arm. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Imanol Arias, Victoria Abril, (more)
- 1986
Set at the end of the 1940s, this drama about Pedro (Imanol Arias), a medical researcher, and his relationships with his family and women underscores the mood of repression that dominated Spain during Franco's fascist regime. Pedro lives in a boardinghouse and is attracted to Dorita (Victoria Abril), his beautiful neighbor. He wiles away his time with a wealthy friend and generally leads a normal life until he tries to save the life of a young woman who has had an abortion that went tragically wrong. He fails, and the woman's boyfriend comes after him, believing that he killed her. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Imanol Arias, Victoria Abril, (more)
- 1985
An accomplished and "enchanting" fantasy-romance, this story of a couple's love for each other and a pixie's benevolent intervention in their lives is entertaining from beginning to end. Cesar (Francisco Rabal) is a fake sorcerer and travels with his wife Pilar (Concha Velasco) in a combination bus and house, performing magic shows for the public. One time when they are stuck in a ditch in the middle of nowhere, a young woman named Saga (Victoria Abril) helps them get out and back on the road again. It soon becomes clear by her actions that Saga is a friendly pixie-witch. She and her warlock cohort cause Cesar's fake magic to really work -- and that is just the beginning. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Francisco Rabal, Concha Velasco, (more)
- 1985
In this otherwise routine film, John Hurt is outstanding as the deceptively unbalanced Peter, brother of Laurence (Julian Sands), an inmate for the last many years in a mental institution in Geneva, Switzerland. An unusual accident cost the life of Laurence's twin brother, when they were just little boys, and sent Laurence to the Geneva clinic. For reasons of his own, Peter, a respected anthropology professor, gets Laurence released from the institution's care and then sets them both up in a low-end apartment in the city. When Pascale (Victoria Abril), a young college student, starts to fall for Laurence, Peter's own mental state is called into question. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Hurt, Julian Sands, (more)
- 1984
In his second successful starring role in 1983, Agustín Gonzalez is a father who runs a wine shop in Madrid, a city under a three-year siege (1936-1939) because the Nationalists forces of Francisco Franco need to take Madrid before the fascist dictator can be installed in power. The siege has left the Madrileños with very little food, living under the threat of bombs, and worrying about the prospects of defeat. It is the sense of impending disaster, of hunger and deprivation that is oddly missing from this cinematic interpretation of the play by Fernando Fernán Gómez. The daughter in the family (Victoria Abril) enters into a love affair with a soldier and ends up having a baby, the son (Gabino Diego) is coming of age with the maid - and life seems to go on with all its proverbial ups and downs. But without the sharp dialogue of the play itself, this film is not as tautly strung, or as convincingly real as the stage production. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Amparo Soler Leal, Agustin Gonzalez, (more)
- 1984
This ostensible comedy about the affairs or non-existent affairs of television executive Federico José Sacristán and his actress wife Elena Victoria Abril) is almost as hard to believe as director Manuel Gutiérrez-Aragón's previous effort Feroz. Federico convinces a friend to attempt to seduce his wife in order to test her fidelity. She passes the test, but her husband is not satisfied, and so he asks his boss to seduce her. Events conspire to lead the boss in another direction -- it turns out he is more interested in a transvestite who is actually the secret lover of Federico, and the boss seduces him instead. Meanwhile, Elena is acting in a production of Don Juan in which two of her supposed lovers are playing her lovers -- and the story continues downhill from there. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- José M. Sacristán, Victoria Abril, (more)
- 1984
The emotional interplay between an arguing couple, in love but not happy with their relationship, is meant to be the sustaining force in this crime drama with little other action. Thomas (Christophe Malavoy) has been blackmailed into carrying a shipment of explosives in his Peugeot to Egypt, where the devices will be forwarded to guerrillas on Cyprus. He brings his lover Veronique (Victoria Abril) along for the dangerous ride from Switzerland to the south, knowing the explosives can be easily detonated by accident and enemy agents as well as government agents are out to capture him. Both protagonists have a short fuse themselves, and as they separate and then come back together, their final destination looms ever closer in more ways than one. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Christophe Malavoy, Victoria Abril, (more)
- 1984
Fernando Rey plays a Spanish cardinal who returns to his home town thirty years after leaving for Rome. Rey knew that he'd left an illegitimate daughter behind, but was unaware that he also has a granddaughter (Victoria Abril). The girl is embroiled in an affair with Rey's own brother (Francisco Rabal), a Marxist activist. The filmmakers' sympathies are more with Marxism than Catholicism, but politics are secondary to the kinky romantic intrigues. Evidently Fernando Rey didn't consider Our Father (original Spanish title: Padre Nuestro) significant enough to list on his official, published resume. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Fernando Rey, Francisco Rabal, (more)
- 1983
Based on Erskine Caldwell's novel, Le Batard could also refer to this French film born from an American novel, with the American South transformed into the south of France. An unemotive Gerard Klein is Patrice, the Paris automobile mechanic who travels to Marseille to identify the body of his loose-living and long-lost mother, who has been found murdered. After proceeding to kill off her barroom boss, he meanders around the south of France looking for sexual relationships. He comes across a teenage musician and is attracted enough to her obvious appeal to establish a more permanent liaison, taking her with him to Paris to set up housekeeping -- for she is pregnant. Soon she is driven to the limits of depression and boredom caring for their home and a new baby, and he has reached his limits of confinement and responsibility -- so he takes off again. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gerard Klein, Julie Jezequel, (more)
- 1982
Based on a 1943 book of the same title by Camilo José Cela, Colmena features the comings and goings of a wide variety of characters, all trying to survive in a poverty-stricken Madrid during World War II. Rather than feature any single story line, these people from all walks of life cross paths almost randomly as they come to a café to sip their one cup of coffee and work on a book, or pick up a prostitute, or get their shoes shined, or play billiards, or just warm themselves on a cold winter's day. This primary setting is complemented by a brothel where a dirt-poor journalist sleeps if there is a room available that night, while during the day he tries to make ends meet one way or another. The demeanor of the people in the café or in the brothel effectively conveys the atmosphere of a long-lost era that may have had hardships but also brought a subtle sense of camaraderie to very disparate human beings. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Victoria Abril, Ana Belén, (more)
- 1982
A young woman is abandoned by her lover after she tells him she is pregnant. Deeply depressed and longing for home, she boards a train out of town. Unfortunately a terrible train wreck ensues. She survives and ends up taking on the identity of one of the dead passengers. Now comfortable and secure that her child will have some claim to legitimacy, the woman is happy. Unfortunately, her dead-beat lover shows up and promises to make trouble if she doesn't pay up. The melodramatic plot is based on a story by Cornell Woolrich and was made twice before as No Man of Her Own (1932 and 1949 respectively). In 1996 it was remade again as the romantic comedy Mrs. Winterbourne starring Riki Lake and Shirley MacLaine. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nathalie Baye, Francis Huster, (more)
- 1982
When the lights go off at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, no one suspects anything more than the usual power outage -- until the Secretary General, Santiago Carrillo, ends up murdered in that short span of time. The Party calls in a private investigator, and the government asks a rabid anti-communist to find out who committed this crime. From that point onward, the KGB and the CIA are somehow involved, and the climate degenerates into one of torture and sex, though not both at the same time. As the private investigator bumbles his way from one predicament to the other, the solution to the crime seems in no danger of immediate discovery. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Patxi Andion, Victoria Abril, (more)
- 1980
The slow mental and emotional disintegration of the mother of an autistic child is the main theme of this evocative psychological drama by J.A. Salgot. Since incest and murder are also involved, this is not exactly a film for all audiences. Clara (Victoria Abril) is graphically shown giving birth and subsequently followed as she tries to cope with the ever-more obvious autism of her new son. She leads a normal life as a keypunch operator, but her son's affliction takes its toll. She experiments with illegal drugs, eventually loses her job, and slowly recedes into a shell that is almost as impenetrable as her son's. There seems to be no ordinary way out of her gradual decline, no solution to her problem that started long ago when she refused to give her son up to an institution. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Victoria Abril
- 1979
Slow in parts but still engaging and well-acted, this drama by Vicente Aranda explores the changing nature of a former fascist, Luis Forest (Lautaro Murua), and his relationship to his niece Mariana (Victoria Abril). Luis has retired to the seacoast to devote himself to writing his memoirs and ruminating over his failed marriage. His sister is worried about him and so she sends her daughter Mariana to check up on how he is doing. The wildly carefree Mariana and her silent photographer friend shake up Luis' staid world. Slowly, Mariana's taunting and teasing break down Luis' intellectual barriers and as that happens she becomes more interested in him. As flashbacks indicate, Luis was not the militant fascist everyone imagined. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lautaro Murúa, Victoria Abril, (more)
- 1977
Jose Luis Lopez Vasquez stars in Dona Perfecta as a young citizen of Madrid who responds to his aunt's summons to her village with curiosity and some skepticism. She has arranged for him to marry her daughter, his first cousin. Romantically, everything works out wonderfully, as the two fall in love and are completely willing to wed. However, a closer examination of the young city-dweller by his prospective in-laws has a quite different result on the family. The story of this film is based on a 19th-century novel by Benito Perez Galdo. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- José Luis Lopez Vasquez, Julia Gutiérrez Caba, (more)
- 1976
On long summer weekends, Juan (Alfredo Landa) is in the habit of hopping on his motorcycle in Madrid and driving for many hours to Torremolinos, a popular hangout for foreign tourists. There, he indulges in his fondness for romancing foreign girls. In this movie, which won a Gold Prize at the 1977 Moscow Film Festival, the people he meets on his journey form a microcosm of modern Spain. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alfredo Landa, Paco Algora, (more)
- 197z
A troubled wife reminisces about the events from her marriage that may have led to her daughter's suicidal depression in this Spanish drama. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Two of Spain's biggest female stars headline this offbeat comedy about the battle of wills between good and evil. Heaven is not getting its fair share of business for the afterlife, so Lola (Victoria Abril), an angel who sings in a nightclub located beyond the pearly gates, is sent to Earth to drum up business by her boss, Marina (Fanny Ardant). Her first prospect is Manny (Demián Bichir), a prizefighter with an injury that could take his life at any time. As Lola tries to claim Manny's soul for the Lord, the wicked Jack Davenport (Gael García Bernal) believes that the Devil deserves the boxer's soul, and he sends one of Hell's waitresses, Carmen (Penélope Cruz), to seal the deal. On Earth, Lola takes the form of Manny's former love and urges him to mend fences with his mother, while seductive Carmen tries to persuade Manny to return to the ring, knowing that another fight would mean his death. While Lola and Carmen wage war over Manny's soul, they maintain their cover by working at a grocery store, where they both learn a few lessons about the pitfalls of earthly capitalism. Meanwhile, Manny is dealing with financial problems of his own -- he owes money to the city's corrupt police commissioner (Emilio Gutiérrez Caba), who is using his strong-arm men to "persuade" Manny to pay up. Released in Europe as Sin Noticias de Dios (which translates as No News From God), Don't Tempt Me was a box-office success in Spain when it was released in late 2001, though it wouldn't reach American theaters until 2003. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Victoria Abril, Penélope Cruz, (more)
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