Héctor Alterio Movies
- 1990
Is the colonel (Hector Alterio) in Paris because he's the chief of a South American country's spy agency, or because he's just another half-mad actor? Is his former mistress Angela (Geraldine Chaplin) really plotting against the colonel's government, or is she just the actress she seems to be? Is the colonel's assistant (John Leguizamo) ever going to carry out his orders to kill her? In this spy thriller/comedy/psychological thriller, some of these questions get answered. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Héctor Alterio, Geraldine Chaplin, (more)
Sister Juana (Assumpta Serna) is a gentle poet and a none-too-pious nun, living in seventeenth-century Mexico. She is protected by the Governor and his wife from a ferociously misogynistic Archbishop, who some believe is using his hatred of women to hide from his very powerful lust for them. Indeed, it is possible that he is the actual father of Sister Juana. Regardless of that, her life becomes extremely grim when her loving patrons return to Spain, leaving her to the not-so-tender mercies of this harsh man. This difficult story is based on a novel by the award-winning poet and writer Octavio Paz. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Assumpta Serna, Dominique Sanda, (more)
This award-winning film by André Melançon -- set on a ranch on the pampas of Argentina -- tells the story of three children spending a summer with their grandfather. The youngest, Felipe, makes friends with a puppy; his older brother, Daniel, breaks and train his first horse; their 13-year-old sister, Laura, struggles with the transition between childhood and growing up. The kids find it difficult to adapt to their proud and stubborn grandfather, and he learns that he has to change his ways and try to understand them as they all experience the joys and sorrows of growing up and growing old. ~ Alice Duncan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Héctor Alterio, China Zorrilla, (more)
- 1987
Five different marriages have left a legacy of families and children and provide plenty of fodder for conflict and confusion when the much-married, famous and wealthy psychiatrist John Gielgud summons them all to his deathbed. While the assembled relatives get better acquainted, the dying man submits to one last television interview upstairs. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Susannah York, John Gielgud, (more)
- 1987
The generals in this comedy probably got their positions the old-fashioned way: through having good connections (and/or lots of family money) and sufficient seniority. What is certain is that they have no affinity for the study of modern warfare, which is what they have been sent to do here. They have grown so used to maintaining themselves as superior beings that it comes as quite a shock to them when a mere lieutenant is allowed to show them just how ignorant they are. Some of them even start to understand that in an era of missile-delivered nuclear warheads, it's not very safe to be quite so out of touch. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fernando Rey, Héctor Alterio, (more)
- 1987
Pedro is a low-level cog in a vast advertising agency, constantly being threatened by his demonic female boss. He is given to visualizing the overbearing woman in a variety of appropriate roles. One day, he discovers that he has inherited a fortune so enormous that he could liquidate Argentina's entire foreign debt with it. While it is gratifying to have former bullies attempt to curry favor with him, not much else about having so much money turns out to be fun. In this comedy, filled with local and contemporary (mid-1980s) references which are likely to make sense only to another Argentinian, he not only liquidates his country's foreign debt, but he experiences the disintegration of his personal life under the pressure of his riches before he is assassinated in Europe. However, that's not the end, as he wakes up and his dream threatens to take form in real life. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Héctor Alterio, Luisina Brando, (more)
- 1987
Set amidst a backdrop of political unrest and oppression in Argentina following the coup of the late 1980s, this impressive drama dwells upon a May-December love affair between a boy and a woman suspected of political subversion. When seventeen-year-old Pedro defiantly befriends political fugitive Sofia and provides her shelter, he creates a deep rift between himself, his family and his friends. Sofia is hunted because she was at one time in love with a Communist sympathizer. At first the relationship is purely platonic as Pedro helps her recover from a 23-day long flight that has left Sofia weak and starving for sleep. But as time passes, Pedro becomes increasingly involved with her and his schoolwork begins to suffer. Gradually he falls in love with her and she with him. But as the political situation grows more oppressive and the government steps up its search for subversives, the two begin making desperate plans to flee the country. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dora Baret, Graciela Dufau, (more)
- 1986
Argentina's turbulent political history is an uncredited but clearly present protagonist in this rather slow-paced story about Ramon (Oscar Martinez) and his search for his brother Pedro in the capital city of Buenos Aires. Pedro has disappeared at a time of upheaval, after a military junta takes over Argentina in 1976, killing thousands of leftists and dissidents. Unlike many others, Ramon's father has political ties that matter, but that may not change Pedro's fate, which could be death -- or like some who have been tortured, worse than death. This film was nominated for a Golden Bear award at the 1985 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Héctor Alterio, Oscar Martinez, (more)
When an attempted political coup in Northern Italy fails, most of the mercenaries hired by the coup leaders disperse. Not so Martin (Rutger Hauer), who intends to rob his duplicitous former employer Arnolfini (Fernando Hillbeck). Martin is able to raise his own army by using a stolen religious artifact as a talisman. He later kidnaps Arnolfini's prospective daughter-in-law Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh),who saves herself from gang rape by feigning eternal devotion to her captor. Weeks of plunder and destruction follow, with a deadly plague thrown into the stew. Flesh and Blood has also been released under the title The Rose and the Sword. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, (more)
- 1985
The war under consideration in this drama about four young soldiers is the 1982 Falklands War with Great Britain (known in Spanish as the Malvinas War). This issue remains a hot topic in Argentina to the present and is perhaps too hot to handle here in its most controversial aspects. The four young men who are mobilized to go fight in the Falklands all have different interests, ranging from art to money, and different backgrounds that go from the very poor to the upper crust. As their stories are traced from their first day at school until the Argentine defeat in June of 1982, episodes illustrate a society rife with political corruption, terrorism, blind nationalism in some sectors, and media biases. Although the characterization of these youth and their friends is a bit sketchy, it is worth noting that when a civilian government took over in 1983 as a direct result of the military junta's defeat in the Falklands, a film like this could be made for the first time.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gustavo Belatti, Leandro Regunaga, (more)
This is an emotionally gripping, fictional look at a couple torn apart by the infamous Argentine campaign of killings and torture that sent thousands of accused terrorists to unmarked graves in the mid-and late-'70s. Alicia (Norma Aleandro) and Roberto (Hector Alterio) adopted a little girl (Analia Castro) during this period of governmental terror in Argentina. Alicia has always wondered about the parents of their little girl, a topic her husband has forced her into forgetting as a condition of the adoption -- he alone knows the full story. Thanks to censorship, Alicia -- like others -- is not fully aware of how much killing has gone on until her students at school start complaining that their textbook histories were written by murderers. Add to this a long conversation with a friend who had been in exile after she was tortured by the government, and Alicia starts to do some serious political and personal research on her own. The results reveal the identity of the little girl's dead parents and reveal that Alicia's husband has had a nasty hand in the government repression and dirty dealings with foreign businesses. She also learns the identity of the girl's grandmother. Her next decision will determine what to do with this information. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Héctor Alterio, Norma Aleandro, (more)
- 1984
Director Leon de Winter has taken a thriller with political and psychological overtones, and scrambled it into a series of vignettes that are mixed-up in time and in location, thereby dashing any hope of following the story. A journalist goes to a southern European country to interview a well-known terrorist who has refused to stop his activities even though the revolution he fought for ended successfully five years earlier. Questions are raised about adopting violence as a way of life without at first realizing it and about the seeming impossibility of raising the consciousness of backwater cultures. Perhaps because of the way the story has been filleted into fragments, characters like the journalist and terrorist do not have enough continuous screen time to build up their individuality, a second factor that makes it difficult to become involved in the drama. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Johan Leysen, Angela Winkler, (more)
- 1984
Expatriate Argentine Rodolfo Kuhn directed this chilling drama about two fascistic thugs who torture victims sent to them by an anonymous, unseen "Señor Galindez." One of the two is a family man, settled in with his wife and daughter to a typical homey lifestyle, and the other man lives alone and is decidedly vicious by inclination. The two men are sent to the building where they torture -- in order to wait for someone they have to train (played by Antonio Banderas). The banality of evil is nowhere more apparent than in this story of inhuman behavior and empty minds. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Héctor Alterio, Joaquin Hinojosa, (more)
Camila O'Gorman (Susan Peccaro) is the daughter of an influential 19th century Argentine diplomat (Hector Alterio). Ladislao Gutierez (Imanol Arias) is a Jesuit priest, also living in Argentina. Tortured by her so-called impure thoughts, Camila confesses these to Gutierez. Flouting tradition, convention, and the repressive Rosas political regime, Camila and the priest embark on a torrid affair. Based on a true story, the Spanish/Argentine co-production Camila was honored with a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Susú Pecoraro, Héctor Alterio, (more)
- 1982
This story is ostensibly about a down-and out press agency in Madrid that is struggling to keep its last legs from buckling under when a young photographer snaps a picture of a corporate leader hurt in the foiled robbery of a massage parlor. From that premise, the story shifts to the personnel at the press agency itself, and in particular, the sometimes conflicted relationship between the photographer, his boss, and the boss's daughter. Before all this can be straightened out, the boss is in an elevator when its suspension cable is cut and it crashes multiple floors down. Does this mean the boss has actually died or is this rendition of the press agency and its leading characters a sub-plot in someone's fertile imagination? The final scenes hint at the answer. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Antonio Ferrandis, Patxi Andion, (more)
- 1982
The internationally renowned string quartet had been performing together for most of their adult lives when their lead violinist suddenly died, leaving the remaining three confused about their lives and careers. Up till then, all they had known were the rigors of constant practice and traveling. Music was everything, and they never took the time to sample Life's other pleasures. The trio decide to split up, but then a young violinist shows up and convinces them to reform the group and let him take over. He is one of the most talented players they have ever heard and the quartet once again makes sweet music. But as good as he is on stage, the youth is a wild man off stage who freely smokes dope, sleeps with fans, and parties whenever he can. Seeing that his private life has not affected the brilliance of his playing and even suspecting that it may even improve his playing, the three old players are thrown into personal tail spins as they look back at their own austere life choices. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Héctor Alterio, Omero Antonutti, (more)
- 1982
An Argentine ex-patriot has been away working in New York for 18 years, and now he is back home in Buenos Aires to close down a factory belonging to the parent company that employs him in the U.S. His former friends were once all dedicated to bringing about social reforms, and he is curious to see what has happened to them in the time that he has been away. The result is disheartening -- it appears that most of his friends did not realize their ideals, and some seem to have given up trying. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Héctor Alterio, Graciela Dufau, (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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patxi Andion, Victoria Abril, (more)
In this French-Mexican-Spanish film that hops back and forth between the narration's present and its past, viewers watch Antonieta (Isabelle Adjani) as she is involved in the turbulent Mexican political scene in the first decades of the 20th century -- as she goes to Paris and commits suicide in the Notre Dame cathedral of that city, and then, in a confusing segment of the film, as she is seen with the present-day Parisian author (Hanna Schygulla) who is researching the story of Antonieta's death and who is a witness to her suicide. The film does not follow that chronology exactly, rather introducing the Parisian author first, and taking the author to Mexico for her research where she sees film clips from the political turmoil of the 1910s-1920s and gradually gets to "know" Antonieta -- though in the end, it could be said that no one seems to know Antonieta really well, or why she would want to kill herself. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Adjani, Hanna Schygulla, (more)
- 1981
The Argentine Fridays of Eternity takes a simple romantic plot and gives it texture with a scintilla of fantasy. Thelma Biral and Hector Alterio are the lovers who pledge eternal devotion. In this case, eternity is not a affectionate exaggeration; it is, indeed, Eternity. Combining other-worldly elements with standard plot devices is not unusual in Argentine films; indeed, many viewers have come to expect it, and are disappointed if the Supernatural is not part and parcel of the package. Director Hector Olivera (A Funny, Dirty Little War, Barbarian Queen etc.) may well emerge in future references as the single most prolific and influential filmmaker in Argentina. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thelma Biral, Héctor Alterio, (more)
- 1981
A series of vignettes is woven into a larger story in this first film to be written and directed by Juan Minon and Miguel A. Trujillo. A writer who works in a bookshop to earn a living meets a wealthy American named Kargus looking for talent to ensconce in his projected art colony in the Gilbert Islands. In order to convince the American to take him on as a good prospect, the writer promotes his own stories -- the vignettes seen in the film. One story is about a young man trying to impress his girlfriend with his new car, a car he indirectly borrowed from a rental agency. His efforts to hide the rental sign on top of the car lead to various comical posturings. Other vignettes are from the era of the Spanish Civil War, including one about two people trying to survive by hunting cats and killing them to sell to butchers. Another vignette shows pro-Franco activists eradicating anti-Franco graffiti in Madrid. Each vignette stands on its own, without an underlying theme to tie the group together. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patricia Adriani, Francisco Algora, (more)
