La Mirada Violeta (`The Violet Look') is the first film produced by Violeta Films set up by the actress/journalist Cayetana Guillén Cuervo, also stars in this film. Cayetana Guillén Cuervo is a respected actress and a familiar face on Spanish TV. She is host of `Versión Española', a series is dedicated to presenting contemporary Spanish movies (the movie is shown, followed by a roundtable discussion with the director, actors, or screenwriters, etc).
In this movie, she plays the compulsively promiscuous Violeta, for whom the grass is always greener on the other bed. Over the course of the movie, she beds three men, a relation with a fourth is revealed, a relationship with a fifth hinted at, and at the end of the movie she is on her way presumably to the house and bed of a sixth man who she just met on the street.
Violeta has a cat named Liz (named after the much-married Elizabeth Taylor) who is constantly in heat. Liz the cat is bound by its animal instincts. Violeta, on the other hand, seems to be bound by her own animal instinct. Her roving eyes focus on her lovers' napes. Over the course of the movie, there is talk of spaying Liz. Does Violeta herself need to be spayed?
Cayetana Guillén Cuervo's Violeta isn't a happy woman, at least she doesn't remain happy for long. It seems that she is trying to come to terms with herself and to understand her behavior. Her only friends are Berta, the wife of one of her earlier lovers (played marvelously by Isabel Ordaz) and Sergio, the gay brother of her current lover. There are a few funny moments in the movie, but I would hesitate to call this a comedy.
The problem is Violeta doesn't arouse our emotions. She is not a sympathetic character even though we see her rejecting the very love and stability she needs. She is also not a monster who loves and leaves. Near the end, a character makes a reference to `Breakfast at Tiffany's', and suddenly there's Henry Mancini's `Moon River' in the background, and there is the requisite farewell scene under the rain. Trouble is, Violeta is no Holly Golightly and Cayetana Guillén Cuervo is no Audrey Hepburn. La Mirada Violeta doesn't quite work.
