Carmen Machi Movies

Thematically, Javier Rebollo's Lola joins such classics as Nicolas Roeg's Bad Timing (1980) and Patrice Leconte's Monsieur Hire (1989) in its acute psychological exploration of one man's obsession with a local woman, and couples this with an extended meditation on loneliness. Michael Abiteboul is Leon, a fortysomething loser who lives with his bedbound, rapidly-deteriorating mother (Lucienne Deschamps) in a constantly overcast Parisian suburb. The depressed and taciturn Leon and his mother occasionally speculate on the neighbors whose life stories are projected audibly through the razor-thin walls, but Leon otherwise lives in a state of silence, depression, and inertia. Eventually, his mother dies, but he klutzily spills her ashes all over the apartment floor. The first glimmer of hope in his life arrives in the form of Lola (Lola Dueñas), a comely Spanish neighbor who stops by the apartment to ask for some ice; Leon instantly recognizes her as an actress on a local porno channel. Days later, Lola catches Leon's eye again, in a local bar, and he takes increasing, then obsessive interest in her goings-on, rifling through her mail and tracking her involvement with various men. When she passes out, drunk, Leon carts her home; he also starts leaving money on the ground for her to find. After she becomes involved in a seriously dysfunctional relationship with a cabbie, who knocks her up and abandons her, she high-tails it back to Spain -- little realizing that Leon isn't far behind. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

A follow-up to Spanish enfant terrible Pedro Almodóvar's 2006 arthouse sensation Volver, Los Abrazos Rotos finds the filmmaker re-teaming with actress Penélope Cruz and working on a canvas much broader than those of his previous outings, in terms of genres covered, narrative scope, and duration. Lluís Homar stars as the former Mateo Blanco, a screenwriter and ex-director who changed his name to Harry Caine after losing his sight in an automobile accident. A past scandal suddenly resurfaces when the news arrives that the producer of one of Harry's old movies ("Girls and Suitcases"), a corrupt stockbroker named Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez), has died. For mysterious reasons, this makes Harry's ex-production manager Judit (Blanca Portillo) nervous; then Ernesto's son, Ray X (Rubén Ochandiano), turns up and asks Harry to help him write a vindictive script to get back at his vile father. The film subsequently flashes back to the early '90s, when Martel became involved with his secretary, Lena (Cruz), but Mateo also began to develop feelings for her, and auditioned her for "Girls and Suitcases." In response to Mateo's interest in Lena (and her burgeoning interest in him), the jealous Martel commissioned Ray to make a documentary about the making of "Girls and Suitcases" as an excuse to spy on the director and star. This enabled him to watch Mateo spiriting off with Lena right under his nose, and set the stage for the wily producer's elaborate revenge against Mateo. As this synopsis suggests, Almodóvar uses a tricky structure laden with flashbacks to both comment on and explain the events of the present; he also interweaves a noirish sensibility throughout the picture that marks something of a first for this director. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi