Bertha Navarro Movies
Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro returns to the phantasmagorical cinema that defined such early fare as Cronos and The Devil's Backbone with this haunting fantasy-drama set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and detailing the strange journeys of an imaginative young girl who may be the mythical princess of an underground kingdom. Her mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil), recently remarried to sadistic army captain Vidal (Sergi López) and soon to bear the cruel military man's child, shy young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is forced to entertain herself as her recently-formed family settles into their new home nestled deep in the Spanish countryside. As Ofelia's bed-ridden mother lies immobilized in anticipation of her forthcoming child and her high-ranking stepfather remains determined to fulfill the orders of General Francisco Franco to crush a nearby guerilla uprising, the young girl soon ventures into an elaborate stone labyrinth presided over by the mythical faun Pan (Doug Jones). Convinced by Pan that she is the lost princess of legend and that in order to return to her underground home she must complete a trio of life-threatening tasks, Ofelia sets out to reclaim her kingdom and return to her grieving father as Vidal's housekeeper Mercedes (Maribel Verdú) and doctor (Alex Angulo) plot secretly on the surface to keep the revolution alive. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ariadna Gil, Ivana Baquero, (more)
A man with a secret forms an uneasy alliance with an opportunistic reporter in this drama from Mexico. Manolo Bonilla (John Leguizamo) is a broadcast journalist for a Latin-American tabloid television series who has been sent to Ecuador to cover the funeral services of three children who fell victim to a mass murderer known as "the Monster of Babahoyo." Shortly after Bonilla finishes interviewing a young mourner, the child is struck by a car driven by Vinicio Cepeda (Damián Alcázar), a traveling salesman who pedals bibles. The crowd assembled to pay their respects flies into a rage, pulling Cepeda from his car and nearly killing him. Bonilla's intervention ends up saving Cepeda's life, but the reporter is ashamed to admit that he and his cameraman didn't break through the crowd to save the driver, but in hopes of getting a better shot of those beating him. Cepeda is jailed for manslaughter, and when Bonilla visits him behind bars, he shares some unexpected news with the reporter -- he claims to know the identity of "the Monster of Babahoyo," and also knows where the killer has buried other victims. Cepeda is willing to share this information if Bonilla can help get him out of jail, but instead of handing the information to the police, Bonilla decides to investigate himself, certain that another scoop on the case will boost his ratings and his career. Crónicas was screened as part of the "Un Certain Regard" series at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Leguizamo, Leonor Watling, (more)
Guillermo del Toro, who quickly became one of the most talked-about directors in contemporary horror films with his first two features, Chronos and Mimic, takes on a more subtle tale of terror with this psychological suspense piece. Casares (Federico Luppi) and Carmen (Marisa Paredes) operate a small home for orphans in a remote part of Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Helping the couple mind the orphanage are Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega), the groundskeeper, and Conchita (Irene Visedo), a teacher who is also involved with Jacinto. Casares and Carmen are aligned with the Republican loyalists, and are hiding a large cache of gold that's used to back the Republican treasury; perhaps not coincidentally, the orphanage has also been subject to attacks from Franco's troops, and an unexploded bomb waits to be defused in the home's courtyard. One day, a boy named Carlos (Fernando Tielve) arrives at the home, looking for a place to stay after being left behind by his parents. Casares and Carmen take him in, and the boy soon strikes up an unlikely friendship with Jaime (Inigo Garces), a boy with a reputation for tormenting other kids. But Carlos soon begins having visions of a mysterious apparition he can't identify, and hears strange stories about a child named Santi who went missing the day the bomb appeared near the orphanage. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marisa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega, (more)
- 2001
Following up on his acclaimed 1999 opus Revenge, Andres Wood spins this wild and woolly comedy about sex, greed, and shellfish. Loco is an endangered shellfish found most abundantly in a remote corner of Chile. Resembling a clam, the creature is touted for its aphrodisiac qualities, making it extremely popular among lecherous old men in Japan. Just before the annual harvest, a pair of con artists, Canuto (Emilio Bardi) and Jorge (Luis Dubo), return to their hometown claiming to represent a fictitious Japanese company. Announcing their intention to pay top peso for the entire loco crop, the villagers are soon desperately trying to gather as much of the shellfish as they can. As news of the gold rush leaks out, a band of carpetbagger whores drops in, hoping to cash in on the locals. The cash is placed under the protection of the town's priest/mayor/radio DJ (Luis Margani) who valiantly tries to instill some order in a town increasingly slipping into a carnal quagmire. As Canuto and Jorge are about to switch the cash with counterfeit money, they fall into amorous traps of their own -- Canuto falls in with an old flame named Sonia while Jorge finds his true love. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emilio Bardi, Loreto Moya, (more)
A powerful political allegory set in an unnamed Latin American country, Men With Guns concerns Dr. Fuentes (Federico Luppi), an elderly physician long involved with a group that trains young people to provide health care for the poverty-stricken citizens of the outlying hill country, where small agricultural communities struggle to survive under primitive living conditions. The doctor has heard rumors that many of his former students are lost and feared dead, so he goes into the hills to investigate. The deeper he digs into the jungle, the more Fuentes finds that the people are menaced by "men with guns'" -- military forces who use torture and execution to intimidate the people, and guerillas from opposition groups whose agenda is only marginally more benign. Accumulating several travelling companions -- a defrocked priest, a deserter from the Army, a boy who survives by stealing, and a woman who has turned mute since she was raped -- Fuentes finds that his journey becomes more revealing but also more perilous the deeper he ventures into the hills. American writer and director John Sayles filmed most of Men With Guns in Spanish (an language he speaks fluently), as well as several indigenous dialects; he claims to have based most of the film's incidents on actual events that have occurred in a number of different Third World nations. Mandy Patinkin has a brief role as an American tourist Fuentes encounters in his travels. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Federico Luppi, Damian Delgado, (more)
- 1993
- Add Cronos to Queue
This surreal variant on the classic vampire tale is the directorial debut of Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who garnered international acclaim and several awards. The film tells the story of elderly antique dealer Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi, in a role originally written for Max Von Sydow) who, with his eight-year-old granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath), discovers an ancient artifact secreted within a statue obtained from the estate of a 16th-century alchemist. Unbeknownst to Gris, the device -- which resembles an ornate, gilded mechanical beetle -- houses an immortal parasite which will grant eternal life to its host. Naturally, there is a terrible price for this gift, which Gris is doomed to discover after the object anchors itself to his body. He begins to develop an extreme aversion to daylight, as well as an agonizing thirst for human blood. To compound matters, dying millionaire Dieter de la Guardia (Claudio Brook) has learned of the device's existence -- thanks to an occult tome obtained from its inventor -- and wishes to obtain it for his own use. To this end he employs his vain, brutish nephew Angel (Ron Perlman) to retrieve it for him. Angel's techniques are less than subtle, and he inevitably winds up killing Gris in his futile search for the artifact... but death is not permanent for the host of the Cronos, and he rises from the mortuary slab to reunite with the long-suffering Aurora. Together they confront de la Guardia and his nephew one last time, hoping to find a way to reverse the horrible process before Gris suffers the same monstrous fate as the device's creator. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, (more)
- 1991
- R
With little dialog and exquisite, almost documentary-like images, Cabeza de Vaca offers a fascinating (if not mystical and at times just plain puzzling) foray back to early 16th-century America as it chronicles the exploits of the explorer Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca as he spends eight years traversing the wild lands surrounding the Gulf of Mexico. The story itself is based on the book Naufragio, Cabeza de Vaca's personal account. Cabeza de Vaca was the ship's treasurer on an ill-fated expedition to America. Marooned on the densely jungled Florida coast he becomes the unwilling guest of the Iguase Indians (for added realism and to help audiences understand how Cabeza de Vaca felt, the Native speech is not translated). He is enslaved and much of the story centers on his coming to grips with his strange new life and the people around him. Eventually he is taken to a powerful Iguase shaman who teaches him the healing arts, skills he is able to put to amazing use during his amazing journey. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juan Diego, Roberto Sosa, (more)
