Julieta Serrano Movies

A new circle of friends helps a woman come to terms with grief in this Spanish drama. Ana (Julieta Serrano) is a middle-aged woman who is struggling to put her life back in order after the death of her husband. Ana isn't the only one in her family with problems -- her son Antonio (Antonio de la Torre) is having trouble with his marriage, and her grandson Ezequiel (Alexander Biggie) can't convince his father that he's more interested in dancing than football. Ana finds a new lease on life when she meets a group of neighborhood women who meet regularly to play petanca, a Spanish lawn bowling game. Ana's new friends help her to come out of her shell and enjoy life again, but she's forced to deal with real-world crises again when one of her pals is diagnosed with a serious illness. Originally produced for Spanish television, Y A Mi Quien Me Cuida? (aka And Who Will Take Care of Me? later made the rounds of European film festivals, and received its American premiere at the 2007 Los Angeles Latino Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A disparate group of women deal with the foibles presented to them in contemporary society in this episodic comedy from Spain. The stories include Magdalena (Julieta Serrano) lecturing her daughter Teresa (Cristina Baeza) on why she can't hold on to a man; Neli (Carmen Balague) offering council to her friend Sofia (Laura Cepeda) on keeping her marriage from falling apart; Andrea (Mercedes Sampietro) explaining to her analyst her relationship with her supremely macho (and unfaithful) husband Emilio (Emilio Guiterrez Caba); Emilio's relationship with Reme (Eva Santolaria), a prostitute who wants him to leave Andrea and move in with her; close friends Mireia (Marina Gatell) and Eva (Anna Casas) battling over the same man; businesswoman Leo (Laura Conejero) struggling to hold on to her femininity in a masculine environment; and Paca (Eulalia Ramon) struggling to raise the money to buy a special pair of shoes for her son. Nosotras was the first feature from director Judith Colell. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Scripter Sergi Belbel and director Ventura Pons based this film on Belbel's 1991 play, structured in a fashion similar to Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde (1900) and Richard Linklater's Slacker (1991): Two character set-ups feature one character from each scene turning up in the next scene, and so on, as a variety of people parade through diverse romantic and sexual situations. Cars careen about via an altered camera speed to provide the linkages between the 11 interlocking scenes. Shown at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Juan (Imanol Arias) speaks Catalan and Spanish. He was active in political protests under the Franco regime. He is an astonishingly bad accordian player, and an acceptable ventriloquist, which enables him to scratch a living from the streets as an itinerant musician/entertainer. A long time ago, he met an aristocratic young woman (Ornella Muti) at a sit-in at an art gallery and married her. She has long since divorced him, but he still yearns for her. Juan was injured in a random terrorist incident, and now affects costumes that evoke the Phantom of the Opera and other famous mutilated men. He has minor encounters with women, but he is still seeking some way to come back into his former wife's life again. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

"I'll never love you . . . ever!" the sexy and attractive Marina (Victoria Abril) states emphatically to the love-struck Ricky (Antonio Banderas). You know she means what she says because when she makes this statement she is handcuffed and lashed to a bed, not exactly the proper way to warm anyone up for romance. Yet in Pedro Almodovar's Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! the way to a woman's heart is depicted as being held in captivity until the Stockholm Syndrome kicks in. The film concerns the plight of Marina, a "B"-movie diva trying to adjust to her recent success after years of porno films and drug addiction. But then into her life comes Ricky, a part-time handyman and full-time mental patient, who, during one of his past escapes from the mental ward, had spent the night with Marina -- who gave in to him during one of her less-discerning moments. Since then, Ricky has been thinking of her constantly. Determined to win her affections, he kidnaps Marina, holding her captive in her own apartment and trying everything to convince her to love him -- then they could marry and have a big family. All Ricky's attempts to woo Marina fail. Finally, after taking a severe beating from some street thugs, he strikes a chord in Marina's nurturing heart so that when her sister Lola (Loles Leon) finally discovers her plight, Marina no longer wants to be rescued. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Brazilian teenager Vera (Ana Beatriz Nogueria) is released from the orphanage where she has spent most of her life. Her brutal experiences while a ward of the State have caused her to adopt masculine dress and mannerisms--a successful effort to wield power over her fellow orphans. On the outside, Vera finds shelter and a job through the auspices of a benevolent professor (Raul Cortez). While still in male garb, Vera develops a chaste relationship with a female coworker (Aida Leiner). Unable to consummate the relationship, Vera undergoes a great deal of inner torment, at one point considering a sex change. The end of this provocative but non-sensational film finds Vera coming to grips with her femininity, even though her future happiness is still up in the air. 18-year-old Ana Beatriz Nogueria won a Berlin Film Festival best actress award for her astonishingly mature performance in Vera. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A laid-back spoof of knights in shining armor, El Caballero del Dragon is set in a medieval European village, but the knight's armor is actually a spacesuit. Boetius (Klaus Kinski) is a necromancer and alchemist fawning after the near-senile Count of Rue (Jose Vivo). Opposite Boetius is Fray Lupo (Fernando Rey) a vile, hypocritical priest who also seeks the Count's favor. Meanwhile, a knight (Harvey Keitel) is romancing the Count's beautiful daughter Alba (Maria Lamor). When a "dragon" appears on the scene, it is actually the alien Ix (Miguel Bose) in a spacesuit. Ix meets the local VIPs and after some scandalous intrigue, his space ship takes off with two earthlings, leaving Ix for dead and the necromancer Boetius with his work cut out for him. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this Pedro Almodóvar film, a singer at a low-end nightclub hides out at a convent after her lover dies of a bad dose of drugs, and she meets a group of off-the-wall nuns while in hiding. The nuns range from one who writes sensationalist pulp fiction under a pseudonym to another who takes drugs, and another hooked on masochism. But their private lives and perverse foibles may be in jeopardy when a new mother superior arrives to take charge of the convent. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A waiter (Amparo Munoz) with the personality of a house plant but not quite that intelligent, gets by on his good looks as he enjoys the favors of women. A duchess lands him a job as a gardener in the palatial spread of one of the ministers of Adolfo Suarez (Prime Minister in Spain at this time). The wife of the minister (impotent himself) seduces the mindless gardener, and apparently finds something lacking because then she goes after the minister's secretary. Unbeknownest to her, the gardener has just converted her into a budding mother. Meanwhile, terrorists decide to kidnap the gardener as a kind of bait (or practice run) for kidnapping the minister. Although it is not revealed until later, the secretary is in league with the terrorists, but then so is the minister. The whole lot of them, in fact, is really controlled by an international ring of corporate types promoting the use of nuclear energy. In brief, an impotent, secretly terrorist minister with a pregnant wife, stupid yet randy gardener, and lesbian, terrorist secretary is running part of the Spanish government, apparently about to be taken over by nuclear energy. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The final journey of war-weary members of the a remnant of the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) is explored in this dramatic movie, based on the novel Las Buenas Intenciones by Max Aub. The six in this story are fleeing to the Mediterranean town of Alicante in Valencia, in hopes of being able to escape into exile from there. They meet plenty of war-time action along the way, and their despair at losing the war and having to flee Franco's main army is evident. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

At age 40, the married woman in this film has her first adulterous affair and decides suddenly that marriage is not for her. Impulsively leaving home with her daughter for a resort on the beach, she hangs out with her girlfriends and essays a few romances until she receives a legal summons from her husband's attorney. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This strange film takes the story of a Spanish country matron into new ground. Adela (Jose Luis Lopes Vasquez) lives a conservative life in her village with her maid. When she scolds her maid for having an affair, the indignant maid runs off to Madrid. Adela receives the courtship of a local businessman, but, after accepting his engagement ring, she is disgusted by his further advances. Disturbed by this, she follows her priest's advice to seek psychiatric help. The psychiatrist, a doctor, tells her that she is, in fact, a man. Adela, horrified, cannot bear to return to her village and takes up life in Madrid as Juan. Her identification papers list her as a woman, and she must improvise in order to survive. There is a lot more to this odd story, made odder still because it is not a comedy, but a romantic drama. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A man withdraws from society by staying in his attic for thirty years in this symbolic feature of isolation. His wife and daughter live in the house and remain his only contact to the outside world. He emerges after three decades to find himself completely incapable of acting or thinking as he did before his self imposed isolation ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide