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| Released: |
1997 |
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| Genre: |
DRAMA
FOREIGN
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| Origin: |
Spain |
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| Colour: |
C |
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| Length: |
97 |
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A student (Merce Pons) interviews three grandes dames about their theatrical past.
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Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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The leading actresses are all competent in roles that may have some reference to their own careers in the Spanish theatre and television, but will mean little to an international audience. Catalan director Ventura Pons has made a film that is visually unimaginative, never escapes its stage origins, and is almost totally lacking in revelation or surprising incident. There are occasional, refreshing moments of intergenerational bitchiness, but hardly enough to justify comparisons to All About Eve; and the older women's recollections of an older, lesbian mentor are insufficiently different to deserve critical parallels with Rashomon. It's further proof that luvvies are much the same, the world over. This drama from Catalonia could reduce you to catatonia.
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ANTI
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Slow, stuffy chamber-piece.
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| (Jonathan Romney, Guardian) |
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The best moments exhibit the bitchy tantrums seething beneath the threesome's composed veneers. Ultimately, it subscribes to the sentimental myth of the Theatre, intense and capitalised, and the sacrifices demanded from its high priestesses. Resident Spanish expats would seem to be the target audience here.
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| (Alexander Walker, Evening Standard) |
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