Salvador Maldonado Movies
- 2005
One man's journeys through space and time are chronicled using footage shot over the course of the 20th century in this experimental drama from Spain. Santiago Bergson (voice of Ana Villa) was a Spanish physicist who helped create the atomic bomb as part of America's "Manhattan Project." Or at least that's what he says; taking Bergson at his word, he also invented the x-ray, collaborated with Orson Welles on the legendary "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast, served with French resistance forces during World War II, and was a noted erotic photographer. Bergson's impressive resumé is due in part to his discovery of the secret of time travel, but his cosmic voyages have caused him to erase nearly all evidence of his deeds, and years after his death his three daughters (voiced by Mirtha Ibarra, Isabelle Clerc, and Carmen Suárez) not only have trouble recalling the story of Bergson's life, they can't even agree on such basic details as where they lived or what sort of dog they owned. Comprised entirely of archival film collected from a number of libraries across Europe, La Niebla en las Palmeras (aka The Mist in the Palm Trees) received its North American premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
One dysfunctional family's problems hold up a mirror to larger issues of racism and misplaced patriotism in this Spanish drama. Berta (Marisa Paredes) is a nurse who is edging into middle age and looking for a husband; she also looks after the three teenage children of her recently deceased sister. Eduardo (Imanol Arias) is a hard-drinking police investigator who encounters Berta during a trip to the hospital; they hit it off and begin dating. But Berta's new romance could pose a problem for her niece, Lucia (Maria Isasi), whose boyfriend, Fausto (Jose Luis Alcobendas), has a lucrative illegal business smuggling illegal aliens from North Africa into Spain. Adding to tensions around the house, Lucia's brothers, Raul (Alberto Ferreiro) and Guillermo (Roger Casamajor), are members of an extreme right-wing group who have been implicated in the murder of an illegal immigrant from Senegal (Emilio Buale). Berta tries to ignore the ugly truth about the youngsters in her care, but when Eduardo is assigned to investigate the case of the murdered immigrant, she is forced to face the reality of her family's actions. Salvajes was the first feature film from director Carlos Molinero. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marisa Paredes, Imanol Arias, (more)
- 1985
This is an off-beat, fast-paced, and well-wrought love story involving two very different people: Lucia (Assumpta Serna) is a computer operator whose sexual inclinations are alternately normal and kinky, and Arturo (Xabier Elorriaga) is a company representative from another town, with a wife and young child. After Lucia and Arturo meet, they start an affair that eventually takes on enough meaning for Arturo to split from his wife. In the meantime, Lucia is indulging her sado-masochistic tendencies on the side with at least one other partner -- knowing that if Arturo finds out, their relationship may be over. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Assumpta Serna, Xavier Elorriaga, (more)
- 1984
In his second successful starring role in 1983, Agustín Gonzalez is a father who runs a wine shop in Madrid, a city under a three-year siege (1936-1939) because the Nationalists forces of Francisco Franco need to take Madrid before the fascist dictator can be installed in power. The siege has left the Madrileños with very little food, living under the threat of bombs, and worrying about the prospects of defeat. It is the sense of impending disaster, of hunger and deprivation that is oddly missing from this cinematic interpretation of the play by Fernando Fernán Gómez. The daughter in the family (Victoria Abril) enters into a love affair with a soldier and ends up having a baby, the son (Gabino Diego) is coming of age with the maid - and life seems to go on with all its proverbial ups and downs. But without the sharp dialogue of the play itself, this film is not as tautly strung, or as convincingly real as the stage production. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amparo Soler Leal, Agustin Gonzalez, (more)
- 1983
In this inconclusive, confusing story about an aristocratic Majorcan family with connections to the Pope and much more darkly, to the secrets of a Masonic Order kept in a doll's room, the patriarch of the family (Fernando Rey) and his wife and cousin come to no good end for reasons that are never very clear. The entire story is told in flashbacks by the patriarch's son, who also has connections to the Catholic Church. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fernando Rey, Ángela Molina, (more)
- 1980
In a gross miscarriage of justice, based on an actual event, two men are falsely accused and convicted of the murder of a missing shepherd from a small Spanish village. A despotic district court judge and a right-wing congressman orchestrate the trial. The two men are subjected to brutal torture by sadistic guards to exact a confession of guilt. The men serve 6 years of a 15-year prison term before they are released, and they later discover their alleged victim is alive and well in a neighboring village. The 15-minute torture scene is harrowing, as is the subsequent passage of the exhuming of human corpses. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amparo Soler Leal, Héctor Alterio, (more)
