Mercedes Morán Movies

Four years after cresting the pinnacle of cinematic acclaim with his comic festival hit Smoking Room (2002), Spanish writer-director Roger Gual returns with a sophomore outing, Remake (2006). Though this film will inevitably earn critical comparisons to such prior efforts as The Big Chill and Peter's Friends for its ensemble-in-a-house setup, Gual - unlike the directors of those prior efforts- aims straight for dark, multilayered, probing drama on themes of intergenerational disillusionment. The story concerns a tightly-knit group of four 1960s leftist radicals (two men and two women) who formed a hippie commune circa 1968-9, in a Catalunya farmhouse, and proudly upheld a "nontraditional" parental approach that shunned discipline. Over the forty years that followed, these onetime "revolutionaries" paired off, got married, raised their kids and settled into affluent, upper-crust bourgeois lifestyles. They now gather for a reunion in the same farmhouse, accompanied by their grown children, and by the fifth member of their old clique, Max (Mario Paolucci). As the sole remaining resident of the farmhouse, the wholly countercultural Max now plans to sell the property. As the weekend unfurls, the parents begin to project old super-8 movies of themselves from forty years prior, and must simultaneously confront the loss of their 1960s idealism and the ill-adjusted natures of their children, who blame their parents' non-conformist ways for their innate unhappiness and inability to succeed in the everyday world. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Airline pilot-turned-whistleblower-turned-actor Enrique Pineyro makes his debut as a writer/director with the autobiographical docudrama Whisky Romeo Zulu. Pineyro essentially plays himself, a principled pilot at LAPA, the Argentinean airline, increasingly dismayed over the company's disregard of basic safety regulations. When he complains, he's labeled a troublemaker, and when things get so bad that he refuses to fly one defective plane, the company simply gets another pilot to take his place. Increasingly frustrated and worried about a potential crash, Pineyro finally writes an angry letter to his superiors, warning that a crash is inevitable if action isn't taken. The letter is leaked to the media, and the airline is sold, but the new owners want Pineyro to retract his statement. Complicating matters, their public relations person is Marcela (Mercedes Morán of The Motorcycle Diaries and The Holy Girl), a childhood crush that Pineyro never got over. She's since married, but that doesn't stop the divorced, embattled pilot from pursuing her. Pineyro's story is intercut with that of a government investigator (Alejandro Awada) looking into a LAPA crash, who starts receiving death threats. Whisky Romeo Zulu was shown by the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of their 2004 Latinbeat Film Series. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Lucrecia Martel directed this potent drama of love, sex, misunderstanding, and coming-of-age. Amalia (María Alche) is a girl edging into her early teens who has begun to ripen into adulthood. Amalia lives in a big hotel owned and operated by her divorced mother, Helena (Mercedes Morán), and her uncle Freddy (Alejandro Urdapilleta). Amalia and her best friend, Josefina (Julieta Zylberberg), are becoming increasingly aware of their own desires and are curious about sex, but between their Catholic education and Helena's unwillingness to discuss such matters with her daughter, their speculation outstrips their actual knowledge. A convention for medical workers brings Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso) and a number of his colleagues to the hotel. Emboldened by the festive atmosphere, the timid doctor presses his body up against Amalia's, unaware of her age. The married Dr. Jano is embarrassed by his actions and troubled by his strong attraction to Helena; Amalia, meanwhile, is convinced the doctor has become overcome with unholy lust, and she and Josefina take it upon themselves to save him from himself before it is too late. La Niña Santa (aka The Holy Child) was produced in part by internationally acclaimed filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide