El Sur (1983) User Reviews

A rare little gem

[khatcher-2 · 9/10 · 30 November 2000]

Victor Erice's little masterpiece earned itself a permanent place in the repertoire of Spanish film-making. Not surprisingly: Franco was dead and Spain had bravely struggled out of a difficult transition to form a now much-respected democratic and modern nation. If art - whether literature or cinema - is to reflect that important step in a country's advance, perhaps "El Sur" (The South) is one of the four or five Spanish films of the last twenty five years which best marked that change.

Beautifully filmed in natural lighting, even in the interior of an old rural house (Ezcaray, La Rioja), the deep feelings transmitted between daughter and father reveal a delicacy so often missing in more banal entertainment. Young Sonsoles Aranguren and Icíar Bollaín play delicious roles which swing rather uncertainly from late adolescence to young womanhood as the daughter who attempts to fathom out her father (and in so doing, herself) with an extraordinarily powerful performance which obliges the intelligent viewer into the film. And Omero Antonutti plays the exact counterpart, carefully balancing his role such that he never overshadows his "daughter's" interpretation. The scenes and dialogues are enchanting, never over-acted or otherwise exaggerated; at all moments Erice maintains full control over the film's development, giving just enough touch of exquisiteness and sensitivity, allowing the film to move unhurriedly through simple but moving scenes to the predictable outcome.

Here indeed is moving theatre-cinema: the understanding spectator will leave with a certain mixture of feelings if he knows a little of Spain and its people; he will not leave unmoved, cold.

Just a little info

[puteolum · 9/10 · 7 November 2008]

There's no doubt that Erice is one of the best Spanish directors ever, and each film he's made is an absolute masterpiece. I shall not comment anything about the plot, the acting, not even about cinematography. I'm writing this post in order to give IMDb's users a little information which, I think, may solve some questions about this film (why its plot is so "episodic"? why the DVD copy seems a low-quality one? etc): well, actually "El Sur" is an unfinished work! The production was stopped due to money trouble, and Erice wasn't able to complete his film with Estrella's travel to the mythical South named in the title. Many years later, Erice himself explained this film's odyssey in a recorded interview for the Spanish TV.

A brilliant and haunting work of art

[howard.schumann · 9/10 · 17 March 2013]

Unless there are impenetrable barriers, most young children love their parents unconditionally, perceiving them as all knowing and all loving. Of course, with growing up often comes a realization that the parents you put on a pedestal are just human beings with flaws, some small, some big. This realization comes reluctantly to Estrella in Victor Erice's poignant 1983 film, El Sur (The South, the beautiful story of the relationship of a daughter and her father, one of only three feature films Erice made in forty years, each one a masterpiece.

Based on the novella of the same name by Adelaida Garcia Morales, the story takes place in the context of post–civil war Spain. Narrated powerfully by fifteen-year-old Estrella, the film is composed of memories and fantasies as she seeks to make sense of the painful events of her childhood. Shot by cinematographer José Luis Alcaine using only natural light, the opening conveys a feeling of an enchanted world. In the first frame, Estrella (Iciar Bollain) awakens in a darkened room with the light focusing only on her. The camera zooms to her hands as she discovers a small box under her pillow containing the pendant her father used as a divining rod.

In her memory, it is the symbol of her father's power that he once used to guess her sex by holding the pendant over her mother's stomach. In the background, we hear a dog barking and Estrella's mother (Lola Cardona) calling for her husband Agustín (Omero Antonutti), but he is nowhere to be found and Estrella knows that he is not coming back. It is only then that the camera moves to her face where a tear is visible. El Sur then flashes back seven years when eight-year-old Estrella, sensitively portrayed by Sonsoles Aranguren, and her parents have moved from the south of Spain and are traveling by train to the north where Agustin has found a job as a doctor in a local hospital.

Estrella's insights into events taking place around her are mature beyond her age. "I grew up more or less like everyone else," she says, getting used to being alone and not thinking too much about happiness." When she is older, her father, whom she idolizes, instructs her in the art of divination and she looks at it as a transfer of a supernatural gift. The slow-developing story reveals the shift in Estrella's perception both of her father and of her country. As she begins to learn more about the war that divided her family and her country, her view of the south as the mythical place depicted in postcards and movies, begins to unravel.

To Estrella, her father's life in the south has always been a mystery and she questions Milagros (Rafaela Aparicio), her father's former governess who is visiting their house, about his life. The governess tells her of the rift her father had with his own father who favored Franco in the Spanish Civil War, and how unhappy his life had been when he was growing up. Estrella's discovery of Agustin's devotion to the starlet Irene Rios (Aurore Clément) whose films played at the local theater is even more unsettling, however, as is the matter of his continuing relationship with a mysterious woman in the south.

The nature of the circumstances that are revealed in the film, however, do not prepare us sufficiently for the events that follow. Forced to curtail production before completion, Erice would have traced Estrella's journey back to the south to uncover the reality of her father's despair, but lack of funding did not permit this and the film, which Erice claims would have become much lighter in tone, was never finished. Although, because of the film's incompleteness, character motivations are murky, El Sur is still a brilliant and haunting work of art. A timeless film of symbol and myth, it was voted the sixth best Spanish film in the 1996 Spanish cinema centenary.

Why a Spaniard liked this outstanding film.

[jsorribe · 10/10 · 16 October 2002]

After "The Spirit of the Beehive" Erice retakes post-civil war Spain through the eyes of a child (and later a teenager in this case). Not only the director recreates admirably the atmosphere of those gloomy years in my country, but also succeeds in showing the relationship between a bitter, low-spirited father and his vital daughter. Wonderful cinematography and sets also contribute to create a masterwork in which every camera move, every dialogue line and every fade constitute a brilliant piece of its own. An absolute must for all cinema lovers.

most beautiful movie I've ever seen

[ay9a · 10/10 · 2 May 2003]

It must be almost twenty years since I saw this movie (and I saw it only once, when I was in Japan), but the memory of this movie remains in me like an old haunting dream from childhood. Cinematography at its best. I think, for the first time, this film made me think that the best media for poetry is not words, but vision.

I would want to recommend this to anyone who loves "Spirit of the Beehive" and thinks it cannot be surpassed. But alas, I don't know how you get this movie in USA with English subtitle.

A lyrical intensity

[pives-1 · 16 September 2001]

I feel compelled to relate this as it has been at least ten years since I saw this film (in a student union theater) and it still has a powerful hold on my memory. I have been unable to find it on video, so my recollections are fragmentary.

I was so impressed, involved, and moved by this tale that I left the cinema feeling as if I were floating just above the pavement. One is quietly and adroitly drawn in by the mystery that the young daughter in 1950s Spain senses in her father. The political dimension is brilliantly nuanced, carefully alluded to without speechifying. The wondrous cinematography captures light so deftly at times that it is almost luminous: late afternoon sunlight across a room, snow slowly falling (viewed through a window), a rain soaked street at night. As the daughter grows to adolescence the enigma of her reticent father begins to clear. It may not sound like much in my words, but from wool Victor Erice has spun gold.

A masterpiece

[zetes · 10/10 · 17 February 2013]

I don't really keep a list of most-wanted-but-unavailable movies, but, if I did, this film, the second of only three features of Victor Erice, director of Spirit of the Beehive, would have been very high on it. It is, to understate, far from a disappointment. Very much a sister film to Spirit, it's about a woman, Estrella, who as a narrator remains off screen, reminiscing about her relationship with her father (Omero Antonutti). As a child (where she is played by Sonsoles Aranguren), she worshiped the man. Behind the perceived god, though, he was quite a sad man, haunted by history. Estrella discovers a particular secret which dominates the man's mind. In her teenage years (where she's played by Iciar Bollain), that secret comes back. This is an achingly gorgeous film, very quiet and largely shot in shadowy, cold sunlight. The images are every bit as gorgeous as Spirit's, and the story is, too. Criterion apparently owns the rights to this. Many of the films that are only streaming on Hulu will never see a home video release, but they really should put this one out there. It's a masterpiece.

The phases of the murky relationship between a girl and her father, set in misty, northern post-war Spain.

[interpreter · 10/10 · 1 August 2006]

This story unfolds in delicate time in the history of modern Spain, as well as during a precarious time in the life of a family.

Adolescent Estrella lives in awe of her mysterious and magical father, wonderfully played by Omero Antonutti, and weary of her ever-practical mother and of their isolated life in the misty and brooding northern countryside. Estrella's fascination with her father turns to intrigue- and then to obsession- when she discovers that her father has a secret, and realizes that she is only one facet of her father's life and not the central figure, as he is to her.

After a ray of sunshine is cast into her dark and insular life by the visit of one of her father's aunts (played by the late Rafaela Aparicio in one of her best roles), Estrella yearns to capture more of the essence of her father by one day visiting "el sur" (the south)—his home territory.

As Estrella enters the awkward realm of adolescence, she grows apart from her father emotionally. A tragic turn of events condemns him to remain a mythical figure for her—someone she wonders if she ever knew at all. The supreme irony is that she is very like him.

This film is captivating, both visually and emotionally, and the audience becomes just as absorbed in the story as the characters themselves. It is one of those films whose imagery will always stay in one's memory, such as in the my favorite scene, where father and daughter sit distantly across a table from each other in an old café, listening to the eerie sound of a "pasodoble" that wafts from a wedding in another room, bringing memories of happier, simpler days.

Take a couple of coffees before

[AlexMedario · 6/10 · 12 April 2020]

Maybe it's a good film, with very few elements a profound story is built, you learn to know the characters with some caring hints, gestures, camera movements... but... there are no intensity in the film, you need to force yoursef to be awake, to be attentive, the film doesn't get you.

I don't think this film portrays the post-war Spain, in fact, all the action happens inside the family house and few references about the outside world are included.

Erice second triumph

[ctosangel-2 · 10/10 · 24 July 2001]

El Sur is Victor Erice consecutive second triumph as a excellent and meticulous director after a ten years period of cinema inactivity that he spend doing television commercials spots to get some money. Based on Adelaida Garcia Morales homonym tale, the film is a cadenced story about a little girl who we see growing up in the screen. Estrella (Sonsoles Aranguren at 8 and Iciar Bollain at 15) reminds the relationship with her strange father, a blue republican medicine doctor in a northern little and still village of Spain at the fifties. The picture was show with success at 1983 Cannes Festival of Cinema but, made off current cinema fashions, did not won the Academy Oscar to Best Foreign Film. I think it deserved to receive the prize. In spite of disagreements with the movie producer (the original picture must to be very much longer) Erice got a delightful, evocative and unique piece of wok with a quite and maintained rhythm and wonderful outside and interior photography. Any way El Sur is the most personal and powerful Spanish film ever made.

Clearly as a non Spaniard I am missing some crucial nuance but hey.

[christopher-underwood · 6/10 · 15 February 2019]

Whilst this is in no way a poorly made film, it is rather self indulgent, nothing like as good as Spirit of the Beehive made 10 years before and missing its last third. Talk of 'childhood innocence' and 'poetic interpretation' should have made me more wary but the earlier film had made a certain impression upon me and I was intrigued. Unfortunately where that film successfully merged the 'horror' of Boris Karloff and his 'monster', with the shadows of the Spanish Civil War and the aforementioned childhood innocence, this falls way short. That little happens before it suddenly stops at a crucial point does not in any way help a film that has relied all the time on our finding the not so innocent child beguiling and her partially absent father fascinating. Clearly as a non Spaniard I am missing some crucial nuance but hey.

Magical realism

[Boris-57 · 10/10 · 15 February 2004]

What do I like about magical realism?

It is the feeling that between yourself and the world is a thick glass wall. You hear and see without really being able to put everything in its usual context. Because of this detached reality, what you see and hear is replaced by something new, where irony does not exist and where perception seems to be guided by something else then what is immediately perceptible. Okay, he's on LSD, I hear you think.

But no; watch El Sur. What actually happens seems to be straightforward, but it's about perceiving what what's happening is actually about. Call me an autist, but it's a clearer reality.

It is crystal clear like after a crispy cold night walking out and realizing this frosty morning will develop into the first day of spring. Open your eyes. Lovely film.

An Atmospheric Meditation on Childhood

[atlasmb · 7/10 · 20 October 2014]

Can you imagine what "The Wizard of Oz" would be if the film ended with the scene where Dorothy and her fellow travelers spot the city of Oz and run through the poppies? Full of hope and with joy in their eyes, they frolic and gambol through the blossoms as the choir sings "You're out of the woods/you're out of the dark/ you're out of the night"?

Leaving us with our imaginations' conceptions of The Wizard and the Emerald City, might it still have been a masterpiece? Could it have been a wistful finale, full of possibilities?

"El Sur" ("The South"), as described elsewhere on this site, was cut short due to financial problems. The director intended to take the protagonist, Estrella, south--perhaps to learn more about what memories haunted her father. Instead, we are left wondering--and using our imaginations to consider, along with Estrella, what mysteries, and solutions, waited in the south.

"El Sur" is a very atmospheric film. It provides a series of vignettes, remembrances, of the young girl that pertain to her father, a man who was often distant and enigmatic. In one extraordinary scene, for example, Estrella hides beneath her bed for hours as other search for her. We see just her face. As day passes into night, the lighting of her face changes--as her moods change from impishness to regret to stubbornness, etc. In this scene, as in others, the director achieves a chiaroscuro effect.

Estrella sloughs off her own childish assumptions as she slowly peels away the layers of ignorance, hoping to understand her father. She follows him, observes him, trying to unravel the complexities of a man about whom she can never be objective.

This film feels like a meditation. Like Lasse Hallstrom's "My Life as a Dog", it takes the viewer into the life of a child, but it feels more contemplative.

Spanish director Victor Erice's 'El Sur' was voted 6th best Spanish film in 1996.

[FilmCriticLalitRao · 10/10 · 26 October 2015]

Spanish film 'El Sur' is a poetic meditation about an extraordinarily complex father-daughter relationship which takes place in a remote location in North Spain.Although this film does not have any grandiose narrative structure, nevertheless it manages to attract viewers' sympathies as all characters have been given ample screen time to present their view points.Taking today's films as yardstick,the pace of this film is little slow but a fairly regular sequences of events does all possible justice to the topic portrayed.By making 'El Sur' Spanish director Victor Erice has created a sincere work of art about the richness of family life.Based on a novel by Spanish writer Adelaida García Morales,El Sur gives a very clear idea about the hidden identity of a person.It is through this film viewers learn that the secrets of some identities are revealed only when somebody is compelled to come to the bottom of a past life in order to throw some light on that person's motives for putting oneself in that situation.Lastly,every country is made to grapple with its north versus south division.It is also evident in this film as people from south left their area in order to settle in north Spain.

Growing up with a stranger

[sb-47-608737 · 8/10 · 28 December 2018]

A beautiful movie, even if I am not a Spaniard, and the historical perspective doesn't ring too much of a bell. I would look at the movie as a relationship between a father and a daughter, and there for any father of a daughter (if both are sensitive and a bit introvert / taciturn), it would ring bells. Father (only mentioned) and Son are on the opposite sides (of civil war, but that is not important), and the antagonism of their espoused cause permeates into their personal relation ship, and the son is thrown out/ moves out. Wandering around for some time, he finally settles down at a remote place, opposite to his father's (north vs South, Freezing temperature Vs hot weather), with his wife and small daughter. He is the doctor in that small town, and people (and daughter), believe he has mystic powers (he might have). There are mysteries in his life, some of which his wife knows (probably she knows most), but naturally not the young daughter (she was 8), which makes him more mysterious and interesting for her. By accident she comes to know that there was another woman in his life (definitely before marriage), whom he had forsaken, but not forgotten. When she is again reminded (she is a starlet, and her one of the movies had been screened on the town), the longing and the memories awake. He is now in a dilemma, one side is his old flame (Irene), on the other, wife and daughter. He hovers on the edge, to abandon which side and jump on to which.

Had the movie been completed, probably I would have known some missing links - the actual story between Laura (screen pseudonym Irene Rios) and Agustin. But even without that it doesn't compromise the plot. It is just that he had been in love, got jealous (probably there was some one else too), and then got married and left the girl and the place. She could be instrumental in that as much as his father was, but that is my guess. In the movie, despite all misunderstandings, the flame burned in him, and another one was of the wife and daughter. Which one to extinguish ? It has a strong angle on the father - daughter relationship and the lack of communication in case of both being introvert - and the ill effects of such relation, especially in crisis. It has a close relationship with many - including the author of Mary Poppins (and her relation with her father). In fact, one could almost say it is P L Travers's biography. At least as much we know of it (except only probably the other woman angle).

"The South" (1983, Victor Erice)

[theskulI42 · 8/10 · 3 July 2008]

His first film was a lucid, enigmatic and fascinating film entitled "The Spirit of the Beehive", about a young girl in post-Civil War Spain who becomes obsessed with finding the spirit of Frankenstein's monster. His second film, "The South", is nominally about the same things, the delicate and subsequently shattered innocence of childhood, the power of the cinema, and in a more direct yet completely oblique way, the effects that the Spainish Civil War had on that country, as 'the south' becomes to our protagonist this mythic enigma of a place functioning as both heaven and hell, mostly filled in by her father's former nanny's descriptions of the complex situation the war had, and the tossed-off manner in which the stories of the father and his father are delivered are engrossingly enigmatic, theoretically to keep from exposing a closed wound to the young child, but are given in such a vivid shorthand that all the buried truths are there to discover for any discerning viewers older than the protagonist.

The film chronicles a young girl named Estrella who is living in northern Spain who considers her father almost a deity, he is interesting, pleasant and in her eyes, possibly magic, as his enchantment towards mysticism seems to carry on to his daughter. But one day, she discovers a letter by her father where all that is written is a woman's name, over and over, and one night, he disappears for a time, and returns just as suddenly. As she grows older, she decides to follow him on a trip to a local theater, where she discovers the woman's name from the letter on a poster for the film currently playing. After the film, she tracks him down to a local café, where he is composing a letter to the female star of the film, a former lover who he would like to get reacquainted with. He receives a letter back, and soon afterwards, becomes curt, practically silent and emotionally distant, to the point that he seems cut off to the world.

The film's themes towards childhood innocence and lost loves are universal even as they appear bizarrely unique, and although there are a lot of odd details that are left hanging (her prospective admirer, who is a compulsive graffiti artist), they seem to enrich the specifics of this particular situation even as they enhance the general associative qualities of the story around them. The acting, from the Estrellas of both ages (Sonsoles Aranguren at 8, Iciar Bollain at 15) is pitch-perfect, and Omero Antonutti is impeccable, displaying an ability to put forth a wide range of emotions in a very select amount of movements and expressions, and whether he's lovingly essaying a letter to a past lover, or shutting the world out once his reply comes back, you may not always understand his motivations, but you get the sentiment, and you know exactly what he's going for, much in the way that a frowny face means 'sad', except that Antonutti has a range of about three inches on his face with which he brings forth this myriad of emotions.

The film's visuals have a wondrous, hypnotic lyricism to them, from the look to the style to the movement of the camera, something more impressive considering that the film is not all that stylistically obvious, there's nothing that makes you go, "Wow!", but it's there, and you feel it deep down in your soul. It's been too long since I've seen "The Spirit of the Beehive", but I seem to remember this quality being present there as well, and I liken it to the effect of "The Exorcist". There's nothing to make you SCREAM in the exorcist, they're no jump scares, no It Was Just a Cat moments, but the film has such a potent sense of overwhelming DREAD that it just crawls inside your skin and festers, to a glorious extent.

Now, this is not to say the film is without fault. The father's transition from "good dad who has a hang-up about an old relationship" to "full-on shut-in who hates everyone and never speaks to his family again" seemingly takes place within a matter of minutes (and that's FILM LIFE minutes, not just minutes of the movie), and the particulars of his former lover and their relationship are left frustratingly scant, and this doesn't seem like a situation where the act is all that matters, this could have been fleshed out to a more effect breadth, and although I do mostly understand the meaning of the finale, it doesn't make it any less jarringly sudden or unsatisfying. The fact that the film apparently ends only two-thirds of the way into the novel seems to support this conclusion. Also, almost all of the film is presented from the daughter's point of view, but there's several important chunks depicted from the father's perspective that, although informative from an expositional standpoint, seem to sort of reduce the delicate mystery and the effect it would have created had we stayed wholly with the girl.

The film is nowhere near as moving as the minor keys of "Beehive" were, but the film is captivating, engaging and never overstays its welcome (at a svelte 95 minutes), and is most definitely a worthwhile filmgoing experience that is worth hunting down and worth praying for the Criterion treatment for. Thanks, Vic, I can't wait to track down the other 33.3% of your filmography, because so far, you're 2-for-2.

{Grade: 8.25/10 (high B) / #13 of 1983}

Simply the best Spanish film.

[mac-55 · 8/10 · 22 November 1998]

Surely, at least for me, this movie is the best one of Spanish movies since the times of BIENVENIDO Mr. MARSHALL. The best of all is the interpretation of the first girl, SONSOLES ARANGUREN and the Italian actor, OMERO ANTONOUTTI. But about all, the best of the movie is the photograph with the marvelous darkness. I recommend it for all the people that love the real and authentic "CINE".

Simple but dramatc enough

[valadas · 7/10 · 15 January 2019]

Life is a very complcated thing indeed. Though not too deep this movie tells the simple story of the relationship of a young girl with her father before and after the moment when she realizes that the normal life she has with her father and her mother hides a mystery, the mystery of her father's past in what refers to a relationship he had with another woman he loved or that he still loves although living in a way off place and not having seen her for years. She is upset when she discovers this and it changes her life a bit and her mind very much. Psychologically a good movie, well directed and performed.

An understated, atmospheric little gem

[Varlaam · 8/10 · 6 December 1998]

Una estrella, like the one Estrella wears on her finger. I caught only the last third of this film on television tonight, but I was quickly absorbed by this story of a young girl's adolescent awakening.

According to "Contemporary Spanish Cinema" by Barry Jordan and Rikki Morgan-Tamosunas (Manchester, 1998), this is one of the key Spanish films, and that does not surprise me in the least. The authors use the word "gravitas" to describe the director, but that word applies equally to this film.

Enjoyable film full of feeling, haunting mood-pieces, marvellous images and sense of wonder

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 12 October 2023]

This extraordinary flick spells through intricate patterns of frames, sets, sound and color containing an interesting screenplay by the director himself. After the production problems of his first film: El Espiritu De La Colmena (Spirit of the beehive 1973), - suspension of filming a week before and use of some essential shots from other productions - and ten years in silence, Victor Erice directs this film based on the homonymous novel by Adelaida Garcia Morales to make her second movie, for the producer Elias Querejeta. The screenwriter and director Erice writes and directs a magnificent and long script articulated in two complementary parts. The first one was developed around La Gaviota's house , located on the outskirts of a city in northern Spain and narrates the complex relationships between Estrella, an 8-year-old girl, her father (Omero Antonutti) , a doctor with a mysterious past, and her mother Julia (Lola Cardona), within the context of the post Spanish Civil War. And the second part is set in a town in Andalusia, revealing the mystery of his father in his relationship with the actress Irene Rios (Aurora Clement), however this second part is never filmed and the film remains unfinished.

This is a brooding and thoughful film dealing with the world of adolescence, the complex relationships of an only daughter with her father, the fascination created by cinema, life in a lost town during the post-war years and the reflection of the south through the brief presence of the old maid -Rafaela Aparicio- and the grandmother. As well as the discovery of two other very young actresses, Sonsoles Aranguren, who almost never makes films again, and Iciar Bollaín, who began a promising career that even led her to direct, are also the main discoveries of this excellent film. This is a sensational film that dispenses a thought-provoking plot and considered to be one of the best Spanish films , in fact was voted sixth best Spanish film by professionals and critics in 1996 Spanish cinema centenary , while ¨El Espiritu de la Colmena¨ was voted third best Spaniard movie. But Erice considered his film El sur (1983) an unfinished work, as producer Querejeta really likes the script but he finds a 3-hour film unthinkable and Erice reduces it to just over two. Once the montage of the film located in the North is finished, while the shooting of the southern part is being prepared, in view of the edition Querejeta says he won't shoot it and adds a background voice, belonging to the character of Estrella, but located in the distant past, that fills in the narrative gaps as much as possible . Thus the film turns out to be a fragment of an ambitious failed project, and for many it is a true masterpiece, as proven by the many awards won. So producer Elías Querejeta suspended the project in the middle of the shooting due financial reasons. According to Erice, Querejeta promised him that he would be allowed to shoot the rest of the screenplay if he agreed to edit the filmed material. However, after the film premiered in competition at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival, Querejeta never fulfilled his promise.

It displays luxurious photography by magnificent cameraman José Luis Alcaine, as well as evocative musical score by Luis de Pablo. The motion picture was well directed by Victor Erice. He's one of the best Spanish directors , known for El sur (1983), El espíritu de la colmena (1973) y El sol del membrillo (1992). Erice was set to write and direct El embrujo de Shanghái (2002), based on a novel written by Juan Marsé. Although Marsé praised Erice'screenplay producer Andrés Vicente Gómez rejected it. After some rewrites, also rejected by the producer, Erice chose to leave the project and he was replaced by Fernando Trueba. Rating El sur(1983) : 7.5/10.

Cinema Omnivore - El Sur (1983) 8.3/10

[lasttimeisaw · 8/10 · 17 February 2022]

"Spectators are on the exact cognizant level as her most of the time, Augustin's secret is only revealed obliquely and totally in sympathy with Estrella's growing curiosity and findings. In the end of the day, an answer-it-all confession remains unforthcoming, Augustin's past is still a myth to us, but what is rendered crystal-clear is the damage - Augustin has become a man emotionally secluded, traumatized and detached, all coded in Antonutti's magnificently ambivalent, self-possessed, touching performance. Also, Bollaín embodies the adolescent Estrella with a rather relaxed air of openness and repose, her final restaurant scenes with Antonutti display the finer points of a father-daughter bond, it leaves us the impression that in Augustin's eyes, his daughter has grown into an adult and that may spur him to finally make up his mind on that tough decision."

read my full review on my blog: Cinema Omnivore, thanks.

Deserves a remake

[Hedgehog_Carnival · 7 June 2004]

I liked this movie, but was mildly surprised to find it getting, here, the uncritical praise it has done.

First of all, for those who haven't seen it, it's a film that gets people raving first and foremost not about the acting (which is excellent, if a little too dispassionate and throttled-back in Antonutti's case for my own tastes), nor the plot (which is resolutely episodic) but the cinematography. The best way I can describe it is to say that it's shot like a succession of Rembrandt paintings brought to life. If ever a film's lighting stole the show, this film is it. Ten out of ten on that score.

Secondly, for those who have seen it, well, didn't anyone else notice what to me was the film's one big flaw? I mean the POV question. Here you have a beautifully filmed version of a subtle, sensitive story of a young girl's relationship with her father. All the way through there is frequent offscreen narrative punctuation in the first person. It's a story quite clearly /told/ from the girl's POV, and all the director needed to do was make sure it was /consistently seen/ from that point of view, both in terms of preferred camera angles and in terms of the information we are allowed access to - and we might have had a full-blown masterpiece on our hands. Instead, the strength and emotional intensity of the film are constantly being diluted by (it seems to me) wholly unnecessary interpolations of information the girl herself /could not have had access to/ (e.g. and most notably, the contents of the letter her father receives from his old flame). Thus, we are artificially distanced from the sense of mystery felt by her by knowing more than she does at key moments, and more than we really need to know ourselves. The magical realism element should have been respected just a little more than it was.

I also think that another less fastidious director might have found ways of quietly pointing up the contributions made by the various narrative episodes (the potentially v. powerful water-divining scene, the relatives' visit, the cinema poster, the glimpse through the cafe window, the lie told to Mum, the graffiti-mad boyfriend) to the film's overarching theme: a vital but absent and mysterious "South" that runs like an underground stream through the girl's youthful, very Northerly experience. The idea is a beautiful one, and the film sort of captures it, but only if you run with the idea yourself quite a bit between scenes. I don't know if the audience's sympathetic imagination needs to be made to work /quite/ so hard in this medium, where just /showing/ is so easy to do.

In short, I think this film is excellent, but could have been better than it was, and deserves a remake.

Subtle mystery regarding the father

[jordondave-28085 · 7/10 · 4 April 2023]

(1983) The South/ El sur (In Spanish with English subtitles) DRAMA/ MYSTERY

Written and directed by Víctor Erice with a very young daughter Estrella (Icíar Bollaín) having just learned that her dad, Agustin (Omero Antonutti) has not yet return home, leaving nothing to her other than a pendent. She then reflects and evaluate her time she had spent with her dad, as well as her mute relationship with him that may or may not have lead to his disappearance. A very subtle examination between a daughter and her father. Whatever possible political statement it supposed to make is nothing more but a backdrop.

5/10. Watchable but not recommended

[athanasiosze · 5/10 · 23 February 2024]

Judging by the rating and the reviews, i anticipated a very good movie. I got tricked, this is far worse than i thought. "A TRIOUMPH", "A BRILLIANT AND HAUNTING WORK OF ART", no, this movie is nothing like that. There is an explanation for this : I read that this movie is unfinished and the production stopped abruptly due to some problems. So, the reviewers are judging it upon a hypothetical basis, they imagine how this movie could be if it was completed. Besides, this is based upon a novel, so i guess that some reviewers have read the novel and their review relies upon the novel.

I strongly disagree with all of that. Because the movie i saw (not the movie i imagine to be if it was finished) is pure mediocrity. It is well acted, well directed and that's it. Story is chaotic, messy and unintentionally funny, i'd say. During the first 30 minutes, i thought this is a political movie and i prepared myself to watch something heartbreaking. All of a sudden, story took a turn and then, instead of a caring father, there was a selfish, ridiculous man who remembered a woman of his past and got depressed.

Even though this turn made it almost unbearable to watch, i kept watching it hoping something will happen. No, nothing happened and the movie ended without a proper ending.

Of course, there is a chance that the last -unfinished- part could be so magnificent that could turn this mediocrity into a masterpiece. After all, i hold Spanish Literature in high regard. But at the end of the day, i can only judge what i watched. So, what i watched is a mediocre movie.

Flawless film making.....believe me.

[himbletony · 10/10 · 14 December 2012]

I saw this film when it was first released in the UK then quickly saw it again, to fix it in my memory as I feared its commercial life would be short. Later I saw it on BBC television and recorded it on videotape, which is the best I have been able to obtain so far. Infuriatingly, it is now available on import, but ONLY on Bluray, which I don't have. Suffice it to say that this film is one of the saddest yet sublimely beautiful films in history. At its heart is a mystery, sketched out for the viewer, but with much left to be surmised, while at the same time Estrella knows even less. She thinks her father has a magic quality, but as she matures she realises that the magic hid some deep unhappiness. She needs to know more about this man, but we know that her search is likely to be fruitless. This is why the "unfinished" ending is, to me the perfect place to end. The "South" is used as a metaphor for some place other, a place we may dream of, but not visit or know. Maybe a place of romantic dreams, a place where we imagine we can find lost loves. This is the father's tragedy : essentially a good man who seems to be living a private life of impossible dreams, when what he has in reality is so precious. This is heartbreakingly beautiful cinema, I can't recommend it highly enough.