Pilar Miro Movies
The former head of Spanish state television, Pilar Miró ranked among Spain's foremost directors. Outside of Spain, Miró remains best-known for her internationally acclaimed sophomore feature, The Cuenca Crime (1971). A graphically violent look at how the Civil Guard tortured victims earlier in the century, the film generated great controversy and was initially banned in a recently democratized Spain. However, authorities did allow Miró's film to represent Spain in the 1980 Berlin Film Festival; that year it won awards at other international festivals. Miró's subsequent efforts have garnered awards in Spain. Between 1982 and 1986, Miró worked for the Socialist government as the director general of cinematography in the Ministry of Culture. From 1986 to 1989, she was the director general of state television RTVE. Miró left in a cloud of scandal after she was accused of using government funds to buy herself a new wardrobe. While Miró admitted that she had indeed bought some clothing with the money, she was never prosecuted and the case was dropped. In 1995, Miró directed television coverage of the wedding of King Juan Carlos' daughter Princess Elena. Just before her death on October 19, 1997, Miró similarly covered the nuptials of Princess Cristina in Barcelona. Miró, who had a long history of coronary ailments and had twice undergone heart surgery, died of a heart attack. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi- 1996
A prominent 17th-century Spanish noblewoman throws social convention to the wind and pursues a romance with her low-born personal secretary in this romantic and lavish costume thriller. The trouble begins when the young Countess Diana discovers that the secretary Teodoro is engaged to one of her maids. Outraged, she manipulates her servant into falling in love with another so she can have Teodoro to herself. The attention she heaps upon Teodoro inspires the jealousy of her blue-blooded suitors who begin plotting his demise. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1996
Love leads to vengeance in this thriller that is based on a novel by Joaquin Leguina. Inspector Paco attends a funeral where he encounters his former police partner Angel. This inspires a flashback. The year was 1942, the Spanish Civil War raged, and Paco and Angel were investigating a triple homicide that occurred in the home of the deceased. Back at the funeral, the two meet Julia, the daughter of the dead man whom they knew back during the war. She tells Angel all the details of her life since then and in so doing gives him the clues he needs to finally solve the case. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1993
Carmen (Mercedes Sampietro) is a puzzle to all the people who surround her: her parents, her grown son, and a charming literature professor. They cannot understand how she can prefer solitude to being in their company. Her work certainly thrives in solitude, as she is a restorer of old paintings. She is content to care for one of her infant grandchildren and a new puppy in splendid isolation. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mercedes Sampietro, José M. Sacristán, (more)
- 1991
In 1946, Darman (Terence Stamp) followed orders from his Communist Party superiors, and went to Spain to kill someone the party had designated as a traitor, and he hasn't been comfortable with himself ever since. Now, it is 1962, and he receives word that he is wanted to perform a similar service. Obediently, he leaves his cozy, book-lined cottage in Britain and heads to Poland, where he gets his orders in some detail. Then he heads for Madrid, evading the Falangist regime's police forces and contacting the city's underground communists. He continues going through the motions of locating his victim, even though he is still very ambivalent about his assignment. At the end, he gets off the hook because another communist does the job. The complex situation grows more complex, leading to a final shootout. This political thriller is based on a novel by Antonio M. Molina and was quite well received in Spain. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Terence Stamp, Patsy Kensit, (more)
- 1986
This adaptation of Geothe's The Sorrows of Young Werther offers a chilly and remote view of love and its passions. The setting is changed to Spain, and Werther (Eusebio Poncela) has taken a job tutoring the son of an estranged husband and wife. The boy's mother is a surgeon and therefore a rather uncommon woman for her society. She and Werther gradually become romantically involved, and his feelings for her begin to run much deeper than is apparent on the surface. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eusebio Poncela, Mercedes Sampietro, (more)
- 1982
In this movie with a title that refers to putting off an important discussion ("we'll talk tonight, dear"), a major fault line running right under a newly-constructed nuclear power plant is the "important discussion" that needs attending. The head engineer at the plant warns its director of the danger, but the director has other things to do with his time. He does not want to ruin his company's future and his own chances for promotion with a scary scenario of a disaster that may never happen, so instead, he focuses on his love life. He is a classic macho with priorities that run to the bedroom rather than the boardroom. He has a homosexual son who clearly needs some more attention, and his woman of the moment loves him even as his integrity is lying inert on a dung heap. Meanwhile, his friend the company engineer is tormented by the potential for disaster at the soon-to-be inaugurated power plant, but there seems to be very little that he can do about it. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Amparo Muñoz
- 1981
In the three days before an operation on the cancer that is threatening to kill her, a film director (Mercedes Sampietro) remembers a few of the most poignant and meaningful relationships and dreams of her life. The premise for this partially autobiographical movie was taken from the real-life dilemma of the actual director, Pilar Miro. Miro had to undergo dangerous open-heart surgery and used her own experience to co-write the screenplay for Gary Cooper, Who Art in Heaven. In the film, the director's romantic involvement with a journalist and an art student, as well as how she views the results of those relationships, are aspects of her life that get careful scrutiny. A photograph of Gary Cooper just before he died brings mortality sharply into focus for her, hence the title of the film. She also considers her ambitions, dreams that may no longer have time to come true -- and wonders if they ever had a chance anyway. As the surgery approaches, the director's own pessimism colors her view of the life she has spent until that moment. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mercedes Sampietro, Jon Finch, (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, Rovi
- Starring:
- Amparo Soler Leal, Héctor Alterio, (more)
- 1976
Teresa (Ana Belen) is an aristocrat's daughter and doesn't give a fig for the lives of mere servants. However, she is erotically drawn to one of her servant's sons, and that is not something she will ever ignore. On the night of a party celebrating her betrothal to another aristocrat, she lures the boy into her room and indulges in frenzied lovemaking with him. In the hubbub and confusion, he hits his head on a bedpost and dies. She entices yet another into her room and induces him to help her get the boy's body to the lake, whereupon she kills her helper and returns to the party looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Emilio Gutiérrez Caba, Frederic de Pasquale, (more)
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