The frankly tiresome Miguel is, to use the Spanish phrase, very pleased to have met himself: Reflections on youth, age, life, death and art pour from him almost incessantly, delivered so as to suggest that Miguel is quoting from stuff he’s written, in a mixture of wit - “the photograph on an ID card is there to remind us what idiots we are” - and cliche. The stage is set for a power struggle that will leave the old man feeling more vulnerable than he’s used to.Īt 74, Sacristan delivers one of his finest performances and is singlehandedly responsible for making the pic watchable. The locked-bathroom setting suggests that this is a study of two generations that would never communicate with one another unless absolutely forced to, while giving Trueba the chance, metaphorically as well as physically, to strip them bare. It is in this absurd situation, naked in the summer heat (at a time that predates cell phones in Spain), that they spend the rest of the film. Disgusted, Angela heads to the bathroom with Miguel in pursuit, and his stated wish to spend two hours alone with her comes unexpectedly true when the door jams shut, trapping them. Ella se encontr, en los ochenta, con una democracia ya consolidada, mientras que l forma parte de los. No sooner has the unfailingly pretentious Miguel expressed the wish that he’d like to have “smelled” Velazquez’s painting “Las Meninas” than he’s daubing Angela’s back with blue paint. Miguel (Jos Sacristn), un veterano articulista, temido y respetado, y ngela (Mara Valverde), una joven estudiante universitaria, se quedan encerrados en un bao, situacin que da pie a un enfrentamiento generacional. But it quickly becomes clear what he really wants, and they head for the apartment of Miguel’s artist friend Luis (Ramon Fontsere). Chain-smoking, whiskey-drinking lecher Miguel (Jose Sacristan), deeply in love with the sound of his own voice, is an aging political journo who’s agreed to meet university student Angela (Maria Valverde) to offer advice. Per title, the pic is set at a time when Spain was still in the hands of the political class who saw through the transition to democracy following the death of Franco.

Madrid 1987 English subbed watch