Ángela Molina Movies

Injustices and misdemeanors in agencies like the local police and the National Security Bureau (West Germany's equivalent of the American FBI) are featured in this highly politicized drama about Brasch, a teacher (Helmut Griem) and Koerner (Martin Benrath), a NSB agent. A polarized society is, at one end, terrified after a public official (Hanns Martin Schleyer) is kidnapped and at the other end, enraged by the mysterious, sudden deaths of members of the Baader-Meinhof leftist guerrillas in prison. Brasch sympathizes with the liberal causes, and after he implicates Koerner and the NSB in some dirty dealings that resulted in the suicide of a young teen, the schoolteacher is fired -- and so is Koerner for being caught out. Both men react combatively to their dismissals and the drama escalates. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Told in a manner more common during the Franco era, this movie tells the story of a man who fought with the Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and has been hiding in the hills for 10 years. Local people help him avoid constant searches by the police, who know he is there. A returning exile seeks him out to try and get him to surrender, with tragic consequences for both of them. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This thriller is based on the still politically sensitive story of the assassination of General Francisco Franco's heir apparent General Carrero Blanco. The General was to have been kidnapped by the Basque separatists, but when that proved too difficult, they arranged to bomb his car (with him in it) to smithereens. In order to do this, they had to dig a tunnel under a city street. The ensuing explosion blew the car over the roof of a nearby house. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Whatever his reasons or intent, when the young man carrying a cello begins working at the old-folks home, he strikes up an acquaintance with the man known as "the Maestro" (Fernando Fernan Gomez), who is full of plans to produce a play based on a Caribbean love affair and adventure in his youth. As he listens to the old man's reminiscences of love, he thinks of his own girlfriend (both are played by Angela Molina). Eventually, the beloved eccentric's play is produced, accompanied by the boy's cello music. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Adapted from Pierre Louys' 1898 novel La Femme et le Pantin, That Obscure Object of Desire is the 30th and final film from the great Luis Buñuel. Recounted in flashback to a group of railway travellers, the story wryly details the romantic perils of Mathieu (Buñuel favorite Fernando Rey), a wealthy, middle-aged French sophisticate who falls desperately in love with his 19-year-old former chambermaid Conchita. Thus begins a surreal game of sexual cat-and-mouse, with Mathieu obsessively attempting to win the girl's affections as she manipulates his carnal desires, each vying to gain absolute control of the other. Brimming with the subversive wit which characterizes all of Buñuel's finest work, That Obscure Object of Desire takes satiric aim at a decadent, decaying society riddled by political unrest and moral bankruptcy. The picture is absurdist even in its casting -- Rey's dialogue was dubbed by the French actor Michel Piccoli, while the two-faced, hot-and-cold Conchita is played, logically enough, by two different actresses (Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina, respectively), with the character's dialogue spoken by yet a third performer. The same Louys novel was also filmed by Josef von Sternberg in 1935 as the Marlene Dietrich vehicle The Devil Is a Woman, and again in 1959 as Julien Duvivier's La Femme et le Pantin, starring Brigitte Bardot. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

This shocking film would have been impossible to make just two years before, in 1975. It tells the story of a group of right-wing terrorists, led by a strangely seductive older woman, whose destructive attacks on anyone it considers to have betrayed Spain to any form of leftism are cynically ignored by the police. The main story is about Tatin (Jose Luis Alonso), a 15-year-old young man, a hanger-on and newcomer to the group, who longs to participate in his first action against the hated "reds." ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Jose Cruset, and packed with violence and riotousness, this film tells the story of a humanitarian bookseller in 16th-century Granada who manages to open Spain's first mental institution. The story takes place several generations after the expulsion of the Jews and Moors from Spain. Juan de Dios (Timothy Dalton), after experiencing and witnessing brutalities visited upon the people of Spain, vows to spend his life helping others. In fulfillment of his vow, he faces down the Inquisition and suffers greatly. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide