Elias Querejeta Movies

Set in the Spanish port city of Vigo, Fernando León de Aranoa's Mondays in the Sun is a touching drama about a group of working-class men who find themselves suddenly unemployed and unwanted in their middle age. Laid off from the local shipyard, the men spend their days at the town bar, where they reminisce, philosophize, and commiserate about their current state. Gruff Santa (a bearded Javier Bardem) puts up a tough front, refusing to sink into self-pity, and occasionally pricking his friends' hopes. Morose José (Luis Tosar) openly worries about his wife, whom he fears might leave him. That seems to have been the fate of Amador (Celso Bugallo), the oldest of the bunch, who keeps reassuring everyone that his wife will be back any day now from her trip. Meanwhile, Lino (José Ángel Egido) refuses to give up hope of employment, going to interview after interview for jobs being offered to applicants half his age. Presiding over the glum bunch is Rico (Joaquín Climent), the bar owner and the men's co-worker from the shipyard days. Despite its depressing subject and downbeat mood, Mondays in the Sun was a big winner at the 2003 Goya Awards, Spain's equivalent of the Oscars, winning Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Bardem. The film was also Spain's surprise representative for the 2003 Oscars' Foreign Language film category, nabbing the distinction over Pedro Almodóvar's critically lauded Talk to Her. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide

Three separate real-life stories about people persecuted or marginalized by the powers that govern them are brought together in this powerful documentary from Spain. In the first segment, "The Child," we are introduced to Guinder Rodriguez, an 11-year-old boy from Peru who holds down a full-time job digging out limestone to be used in construction. Despite his grim circumstances, Guinder struggles to maintain a positive outlook and tries to take pride in his work. In "The Word," Turkish expatriate Mehdi Zana, once the mayor of a Kurdish community, now lives in Sweden, where he lobbies for the release of his wife Leyla Zana, a well-respected Kurdish peace activist jailed on political charges. Leyla and Medhi have been married for 24 years, but due to her status as a political prisoner, have spent less than five years together. And in "Life," Tomas Rangel is an immigrant from Mexico whose son has been sentenced to death in Texas. As Rangel asks authorities to show mercy on his son, Thomas Miller-El, a prisoner on death row whose guilt has been called into question discusses his feelings about life as a condemned man. A critical and commercial success in Spain, La Espalda Del Mundo was shown to an enthusiastic reception at the 2000 San Sebastian Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Following his award-winning Familia (1997), 30-year-old writer-director Fernando Leon de Aranoa set this Spanish drama in Madrid's grim working-class fringe neighborhood. Caught in the concrete jungle, 15-year-old friends Rai (Crispulo Cabezas), Manu (Eloi Yebra), and Javi (Timy) pass the summer dreaming of girls and sandy beaches. Javi is surprised by the sexual interest of his pals in his sister Susi (Marieta Orozco). Minus a vehicle, Manu struggles to keep his pizza delivery job. Entering a contest for an exotic vacation, Rai instead wins a jet ski -- which is stolen before he manages to profit by selling it. Manu and his father (Francisco Algora) lie about Manu's absent junkie brother, while Javi's mother (Alicia Sanchez) gets a court restraint to deal with Javi's violent father (Enrique Villen). The film features a soundtrack of Spanish rap and rock. At the 1998 San Sebastian Film Festival, Leon de Aranoa received a "Best Director" award plus two other awards for screenwriting. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

In this Spanish language film, we are taken to the touching 55th birthday celebration of paterfamilias Santiago (Juan L. Galliardo). Among those attending are his wife Carmen (Amparo Munoz), his brother Ventura (Chete Lera) and Ventura's wife Sole (Agata Lys), and his children. As the film develops, we discover that all these people are actors whom Santiago has hired to ease him over the loneliness of this moment in his life. The imposture is particularly evident when Santiago is quizzing some of the actors to make sure they remember their parts properly. Things become tense when someone who knows Santiago slightly and is unaware of the day's impostures comes by and compliments him on the normality of his family life. There is yet more tension when Santiago beds Carmen, who is in reality Ventura's wife. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The apparently self-destructive debauchery of the eternally bored, nihilistic youth of Generation X is chronicled in this European drama set in Madrid. The stories concern a group of friends in their early 20s who frequent a local bar at night where they drink, do drugs and have meaningless sexual encounters. Much of the story centers on Carlos who has distanced himself emotionally from his comfortably middle-class family; the only one among them he can relate to is his grandfather who seems to understand the hopeless outlook that Carlos and his friends have about their future. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Ambiguous symbolism and minimalist storytelling imbue this pantomime-like film with some fine imagery. In the story, a medieval family group has traveled for quite some time when they arrive at a hut on the shores of a mysterious lake. Their arrival is accompanied with omens such as a swarm of drowning rats. They are attempting to protect the woman of the family from being ravished by the local feudal lord. Nothing is explained, and there is little dialog. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this slow-paced film focusing on Basque culture and politics, the life of Tasio (Patxi Bisquert), a man who works in the coal industry, is traced from his childhood (young Tasio is played by Garikoitz Mendigutxia), through his teen years (Isidro José Solano), to his adulthood. As Tasio grows up and learns about his world working on a coke pile, dealing with tragedy when deaths occur, or simply relating to his brother, best friend, or father, the issues of exploitation of the workers and the repression by the Spanish Civil Guard, and questions relating to the priesthood are brought forward. Both his home and family life as a husband and father, as well as his relationships to those around him, give a sympathetic and clear picture of Basque village culture, although the topic itself may limit interest in the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This fantasy about a young man who becomes a bear, who becomes a young man again is equally ambivalent in its identity -- it is a drama that becomes a comedy that becomes a satire, and is not quite a straightforward fable. After the young man runs away from being shackled to a cabin, he spends the winter in a cave and emerges as a bear (obviously a man wearing a bear suit). He is taken in by a writer who teaches him how to use a computer, which somehow poses no problem. The bear speaks like the young man and for awhile tries working as a computer operator, undoubtedly raising questions about the standards in that field. While invited to tea one afternoon, the bear kills a dog in self-defense and is forced to head back to his cave for the winter -- where he emerges after a long hibernation as the young man. In retrospect, contact with the computing world had quite a transforming effect. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this story (within a story) a man is remembering his years as a little boy living in Madrid during World War II, particularly important because his mother committed suicide in 1942. Scenes flip back and forth between the man in the present, and the man as a little boy, very much attached to his mother and intensely disliking his father. As these memories move into the complexities of life back then, the story stops and it is shown to be something entirely different than what it seemed. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

For the Spanish Mama Turns a Hundred, director Carlos Saura reassembles many of his cast members from his 1972 Anna and the Wolves. As Mama reaches the century mark, her wolf-pack relatives go fang and claw after currying her favor in hopes of a large legacy. The film is set during the Franco regime, permitting Saura to use his greedy family as a microcosm of all that had gone bad in Spain since the Civil War. Though potentially grim, Mama Turns a Hundred is essentially a comedy, though many of the laughs are of the "shock of recognition" variety, especially for those who've come from a similarly avaricious family. The film was originally released as Mama Cumple Cien Anos. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When he realizes that he now has no real connection with anyone, Maximo Gascon (Ignacio Fernandez de Castro) tries to reach out to his daughter. Everyone else he felt connected to is dead or has left him behind. Despite many attempts to break through the invisible barrier which cuts him off from genuine emotional communication, he is unsuccessful. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

On the heels of his award-winning Cria cuevos (Raise Ravens), Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura dashed off the muted psychological drama Elisa, My Love. Geraldine Chaplin stars as Elisa, who after an absence of 20 years is reunited with her father, Fernando Rey (in a superb performance, which won him the Cannes Film Festival "Best Actor" prize ). Having just divested herself of an unhappy marriage, Elisa hopes to heal old, long-standing family wounds. Inasmuch as Saura thrives on exploring "unspeakable" subjects in his films, one can gather that the relationship between Elisa and her father may be far more complex than it seems at first. Elisa, Vida Mia was released in English-speaking countries as Elisa, My Love. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Widely regarded as a masterpiece of Spanish cinema, this allegorical tale is set in a remote village in the 1940s. The life in the village is calm and uneventful -- an allegory of Spanish life after General Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War. While their father (Fernando Fernán Gómez) studies bees in his beehive and their mother (Teresa Gimpera) writes letters to a non-existent correspondent, two young girls, Ana (Ana Torrent) and Isabel (Isabel Telleria), go to see James Whale's Frankenstein at a local cinema. Though they can hardly understand the concept, both girls are deeply impressed with the moment when a little girl gives a flower to the monster. Isabel, the older sister, tells Ana that the monster actually exists as a spirit that you can't see unless you know how to approach him. Ana starts wandering around the countryside in search of the kind creature. The film received critical accolades for its subtle and masterful use of cinematic language and the expressive performance of the young Ana Torrent. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide