Charo Lopez Movies

Romance and murder walk side by side in this psychological drama from Spain. A serial killer has been plying his grisly trade in a small town in Spain, murdering young girls and leaving their bodies in a nearby forest. A police inspector (Miguel Angel Sola) is sent in to investigate -- his first case outside tumultuous Basque County in 14 years. The detective has problems dealing with the stress of his job, and he finds little consolation in his off hours: he's been fighting a drinking problem for some time, and his wife (Charo Lopez) is in a mental hospital after murder threats against him led her to a nervous breakdown. As the inspector looks at the evidence in the latest killing with the help of Ferreras (Chete Lera), the city's coroner, he pays a visit to the school where the victim was studying. There he meets Susana Grey (Adriana Ozores), a teacher and single mother whose husband left her several years earlier to run off with Ferreras' former girlfriend. The inspector and Susana display an immediate interest in each other, and soon find themselves edging into a tentative romance, while the detective tries to stay on the trail of the murderer. Plenilunio was screened in competition at the 2000 San Sebastian Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this talky Spanish thriller, Gabi, a lesbian gang member seeks to convince her middle-aged heterosexual dreamgirl Carmina to become her new lover and crime partner. The story begins as Gabi and her lover burst into another woman's apartment, tie her up and begin robbing her. The police show up and during a shoot-out, one of the robbers is killed. After she escapes, Gabi returns to her fringy friends and begins dreaming of a soul mate. All Gabi knows is that the right woman will be a pair of green high heels. Carmina owns such a pair, and though she is far from Gabi's physical ideal, a soul mate is a soul mate and so she begins her persistent courtship. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar returns to his recurring framework of offbeat sexuality and death with this colorful comedy. Kika (Veronica Forque) is a Madrid makeup artist who falls in love with Ramon (Alex Casanovas), a dead man whose face Kika is hired to prepare for a funeral. Kika's attraction resurrects Ramon, and the two begin cohabiting. Kika becomes embroiled in a pair of criminal schemes, one involving her maid Juana (Rossy De Palma) and Juana's amorous, retarded brother Pablo (Santiago Lajusticia), the other involving Ramon's father, Nicholas (Peter Coyote). After Kika is raped by Pablo, she learns the incident was videotaped by Ramon, the footage ending up on a tabloid television program hosted by Andrea Scarface (Victoria Abril). Kika and Ramon split, but the latter discovers his father's complicity in the demise of his mother, leading to a violent confrontation. Because of Almodovar's humorous treatment of the film's rape, Kika was his third feature in a row that resulted in critical accusations of misogyny and exploitation. His subsequent material became more dramatic and less tinged with black humor. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

This literary film is imbued with the disenchantment of Spanish exiles who left their homes to protest Franco's fascist regime and then returned after its demise to find that democracy had not instilled either ethics or deep motivation in government leaders. Director Basilio Martin Patino presents his story, and a large part of the film is based on his own life, through the experiences of an exiled heroine played by Charo Lopez. She has returned to Spain to look for meaning in her life, something that she never found living in Germany, not even after having a child. She is also in the process of translating the German lyric poet Friederich Holderlin (see the 1985 Halfte Des Lebens) into Spanish, focusing on his epic Hyperion. Excerpts from the translation are voiced over throughout the film. As she looks up old friends from many, many years ago, even those who have achieved worldly success are suffering from the same ennui that propelled her back home. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this downbeat and drawn-out story of personal woe in exile, Martin (Federico Luppi) takes his daughter and leaves Uruguay to live in a specific city in northwestern Spain. Passing himself off as a basketball coach (a total scam -- he knows zip about the game), he manages to support the two of them and at the same time, he goes out looking for the woman he once loved. Meanwhile, his wife's divorce lawyer is requesting the daughter to come home and live with her mother, and when Martin finally hunts down his former lover, she has about as much interest in him as his estranged wife. The exiled Uruguayan is definitely between a rock and a hard place, as his circumstances deteriorate from there. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Set in Barcelona at the end of the 1950s, this melodrama revolves around a swaggering, petty criminal who tries to impress with his motorcycle skills and black leathers as he seduces one of the servants in a wealthy family and then goes after the blond daughter of the household. His plans are destroyed when the servant becomes hospitalized and eventually dies of unknown causes, catalyzing the rich family to send their daughter away and go after the young hoodlum to end his days of delinquency. Undistinguished in its script and the interpretations of the main protagonists, this film does not hold attention securely enough to keep it from slipping. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Three booze-soaked near-derelicts have a series of macabre adventures on the day when one of them was supposed to report to his new job at the mine, located near their northern Spanish town. Set at the end of the 19th century, and based on A Esmorga by Eduardo Balnacoamer, this story follows the trio on the bender to end all benders. The fellow with a new job is waylaid by his buddies who haul him off to a local bar. There, they get into a fight and wind up knifing a miner. They escape over the wall of a nobleman's villa, and have several strange adventures before settling down peaceably for a late-night drink. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This dark drama, based on a classic Spanish novel, chronicles the troubled life of an unhappily married woman living in a village of indifferent or prejudiced neighbors. The poor woman suffers even more when the town Casanova begins to pursue her as does the local representative for the Spanish Inquisition. AKA La Regenta. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi