maurazos

Along this week I have heard by several Spanish media how wonderful will this TV series would be. They told we would enjoy the best Álex de la Iglesia, the director whose film "El día de la bestia" and short "Mirindas asesinas" made me discover a new dimension of sense of humour and irony. But "Plutón BRB Nero" is very far from that, at least its first chapter ("El origen de Roswell"), so I hope the series improves in the next episode. In "El origen de Roswell" I have found a very easy humour, almost childish. It intends to be a parody of science-fiction cinema and a way to critizice some aspects of 21st century reality towards a story which happens in the 26th century... But the real thing is that de la Iglesia does not get any of his purposes: I can't see a real denounce of the dark side of the 21st century, and not a brilliant parody of futurist films. It was a very absurd story that fortunately it just took 35 minutes.

It has been a nice surprise for me to see such a wonderful movie and I recognize that I would not have seen it if it had not been prized with three 2008 Goya Awards (including Best Film and Best Director ones). Of course, Spanish media did not talk too much about it because I can imagine they have not any economical or political interest on it. That is the way they do it.

But it is a delight that those kind of films are still done in 21st century, so simple, with no music and not dramatic special effects, with unknown but credible and natural actors and actresses. This film is an effective portrait of the Spanish society today with all its problems and all its virtues, with no typical images for tourists nor false features to sell a brilliant and fiction image of a Spain that does not actually exist.

I love the calmed atmosphere that wrap the scenes and the usual division of the image in two halves that let the audience have a double perspective of the scene. The static cameras and the frontal shots make me remember Yasujiro Ozu's style, so I like this film even more.

Finally, I must say that this is a film which proves that an excellent film can be done with not big amounts of money: an example to be followed.

I really enjoyed that film. Maybe I am under family influence, because my wife was born in Japan Kagawa prefecture, where this film were made, but I think it is a film that describes perfectly the life in a small Japanese rural area and how passionate Japanese are for food subjects. I saw in "Udon" many influences from Juzo Itami's "Tampopo", another food comedy, that proves that Itami is an undervalued director by both critics and audience and his influence will be seen in 21st century film makers. Despite it is a long time, you never find boring scenes and the action is intense and attractive, so you always find interests to watch the film. I'm sure that "Udon" will be one of the films that will "survive" and will still talk about it in the next decades.