Fernando Arrabal Movies
In this bizarre surrealist comedy from France, a handful of oddball characters live in world where people heap strange forms of abuse on animals -- dwarves stage bullfights with rhinos, zoos open restaurants where the privileged can dine on the animals on display, and the wealthy lock themselves into their mansion with the angry pit bulls trained to protect them. In the midst of such madness, a stocky animal handler (Gustave Kervern) who can neither hear nor speak falls in with a pair of dissolute zookeepers (Benoit Delepine and Eric Martin) who are hooked on ketamine and shoot one another with tranquilizer darts for fun. The zookeepers involve their new friend in a crazy scheme to kidnap the pet dog of a very wealthy and extremely large woman, Avida (Velvet), but the three men prove to be wildly inept criminals, and once they're found out, Avida forces them to help her in a plan to take her own life. Featuring a cameo appearance from acclaimed filmmaker Claude Lelouch, Avida was written and directed by Benoit Delepine and Gustave Kervern, who also act in the film; it received its American premiere at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gustave Kervern, Benoit Delepine, (more)
- 1982
A potentially moving story about a Cambodian orphan and his quest to return home is trivialized by overacting and exaggeration in this fantasy tale meant for family fare. Toby (Jonathan Starr) and Liz (Anick) live with their aunt and uncle in bucolic happiness, and one day a Cambodian orphan adopted by the aunt and uncle joins the family. Han (Ky Huot-uk) has a dream of returning home (the murderous Khmer Rouge are not mentioned). So when the youngsters come across the eccentric King of Peru (Mickey Rooney) and his magic locomotive, Han gets the idea of jumping on board and riding it back to Cambodia. The intended poignancy of his wish is unfortunately lost among the weak story, cutesy children, and a caricatured interpretation by Mickey Rooney. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Starr, (more)
- 1979
An imaginative, symbolic drama with political overtones, Die Hamburger Krankheit postulates an affliction that is attacking the citizenry in Hamburg and threatening to spread like the bubonic plague. By coincidence, there is a medical conference taking place in the city at the time of the outbreak, and one of the doctors (Helmut Griem) does not agree with the others about how to cure the illness. Then this doctor and several others start heading South, presumably to escape the affliction. Along the way, they encounter many strange events, are stopped by "disinfectant" crews, some are gunned down, and others sell out their ideals. In the end, this undefined affliction could be of the moral variety, or philosophical, or political, or not, adding nuances to the unfolding events. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helmut Griem, Fernando Arrabal, (more)
- 1976
In this film, outspokenly homosexual filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim has documented his encounters with friends in the New York "underground" arts movement, the better-known of whom are William Burroughs (who says nothing for the camera), Andy Warhol (seen in the distance) and Fernando Arrabal (who is interviewed in Spanish). The emigrants named in the title are notable Germans who left the country before World War II, such as Greta Keller and Grete Mosheim. Reviewers at the time of the film's release considered it to have been a sort of paid vacation for the filmmaker rather than a serious effort. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William S. Burroughs
- 1975
The director of this film, Fernando Arrabal, himself an exile from Spain, tells a story which takes place during the time of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). A woman nearly suffers rape by the nephew of the local nobleman but is rescued by the man's son. The boy is an artist whose works are too modern and rebellious, even blasphemous, for his conservative countrymen. After fighting for some time with the Republican cause, both of them are arrested by the Franco faction. The boy is tortured and disfigured by his captors, but his love for the woman restores him to full life. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mariangela Melato, Ron Faber, (more)
Love, death, sainthood and murder figure in this French film by Spanish director Fernan Arrabal, better known for his film Viva La Muerte. Aden Rey (George Shannon) is an epileptic boy whose life has been stunted by the heavy religiosity and repressiveness of his mother (Emmanuele Riva), who has had numerous lovers. When she is found killed, the boy (who did not kill her) is the primary suspect. He flees, and goes to the desert. There, he finds a small-statured man (Hachemi Marzouk), a hermit. The hermit is very innocent, saintlike and free. Aden returns to the city with the hermit, who gets work as a circus performer until he frees the show's animals and Aden is wounded by pursuing police. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emmanuelle Riva, George Shannon, (more)
- 1971
This is an extremely violent, gory, and surreal meditation on the life of a young lad during the time of the Spanish Civil War, as he attempts to find out what happened to his father, who has disappeared. It turns out that his mother, devout in her loyalty to the Falange, has turned him in as a leftist. Multiple scenes involve castration and the consumption of testicles, in one case by a victimized priest. The grotesquery includes a fantasy scene of a city swamped in the boy's urine, the mother having a bowel movement over the head of his father, and a deeply Oedipal scene with the boy, a bull and his mother. Not for the faint of heart, this film achieved cult status in New York City shortly after its release. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anouk Ferjac, Nuria Espert, (more)
