Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Son de mar / Sound of the Sea



ES © 2001 Lolafilms. P: Andrés Vicente Gómez. D: Bigas Luna. SC: Rafael Azcona – based on the novel by Manuel Vicent (1999). Excerpt from Virgil's Aeneid. DP (Eastmancolor) : José Luis Alcaine. AD: Pierre-Louis Thévenet; set dec: Iñigo Navarro. COST: Macarena Soto. M: Glen Johnson. "Gangsta's Paradise" perf. Coolio; "It's Not Unusual", perf. Tom Jones. Sound: Ricard Casals (Dolby Digital). ED: Ernest Blasi.
    Starring: Jordi Mollà (Ulises), Leonor Watling (Martina), Eduard Fernández (Sierra). In Spanish.
    2811 m / 102 min     A beautiful 35 mm print without subtitles. Gorgeous all-photochemical look.
    Print check viewing at Orion, Helsinki, 1 June 2005.

An erotic romance in a small town by the Bay of Valencia of the Balearian Sea. Bigas Luna's love hymn to the fascination of the Mediterranean Sea, the fatal surge of life and death, with references to classical legends from the ages of Homer and Virgil. The young teacher Ulises comes to town and falls in love with they young Martina who has been dating the construction executive Sierra. There's a wedding, and a baby son. Ulises disappears in the boat named Martina which is found wrecked. But he returns after some years to find Martina married to Sierra. They start their love affair in secret, more torridly than ever. They leave in the yacht Son de mar, but it's a trap. Alcaine's cinematography is excellent. The film is an object of beauty. It glorifies the female charms with a special interest in the naked breasts. And oranges, tuna fish, the sea. Leonor Watling is scintillating. After a while, crocodile? The story is nonsense, it's about the vision and the sound (of the sea).

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