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12 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Beautifully made, 28 August 2002
9/10
Author: Christian (christian94@hotmail.com) from Montreal, Canada

This is a movie with strong acting and a suspenseful intrigue that successfully peels open layer by layer to leave a sentiment of understanding and satisfaction to the attentive audience.

"En la ciudad sin limites" is the story of a Spanish family (Madrid) who is gathered in Paris to support the 'pater familia' in his fight against a terminal illness. Family secrets and tense relations will surface and the dying old man, secretive as can be, will nonetheless give clues to what is really going on in the city without limits.

This Spanish and Argentinian co-production is a testament to the collaboration of nations to produce top-notch film-making with an excellent cast, great directing, deep and compelling storytelling, and the power of a incredible cinematic experience.

There are so many interesting stories intertwined that some will be left without clear answers, and this is particularly effective because of the care taken to flesh out believable flawed characters that make us attached and concerned about their lives. Lives that are no less complicated and problematic than our own.

You will experience unexpected turns hand and hand with the characters and be able to not only relish the story and the denouement of the complex plot, but to appreciate this portray of the drives and constraints of men.

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10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
A perfectly structured thriller, 20 February 2003
Author: abisio from Miami

A rich Spanish man is treated for a brain tumor in a Paris hospital . His family around him, fighting for the inheritance (and mutually betraying). The old man seems to have lost contact with reality, but his elder son noticing that he still has some consciousness, tries to establish a communication with him, even when that implies to get into his father madness and discover secrets nobody wants to surface.

The movie is an exercise in suspense. Perfectly orchestrated situations, make you feel nervous about simple things as a walk in the hall (trying to get out of the hospital). Or make the bad guy out of a worried mother. This is just a family story with an old mystery. It is so simple that similar things happen every day but with an incredible craftsmanship was converted in a thriller.

Yes, it is a thriller and a mystery. It has all the elements you usually expect; sex, betrayal, lies. No, is not what you expect. The story is clever but realistic. The violence is replaced with poetry, and as in real life, lots of things happen but few are really resolved.

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Emotion in the strangest places, 24 May 2005
8/10
Author: jpschapira from Argentina

"You must find the way out", declares the tagline. It's, with one simple look, referring to the movie's title; "The City of No Limits", and how to get away from it. That's how you would imagine, but it's much more complex. It's a way out of problems and situations involving a family…A way to show what happens when a family is separated for a long time and meets again.

I decided to watch this movie, mainly, because I saw Leticia Brédice's name somewhere. She's probably my favorite Argentinean actress and I love to see her in movies (because she also works in television). I considered that reason enough, but I was glad I found Leonardo Sbaraglia too. He's an excellent character actor that was born in Argentina but, like many others, tried luck in Spain and did many movies in both countries.

"En la ciudad sin límites" is a co-production between Spain and Argentina…This co-productions fail almost all the times, because the writers have to invent plot elements to set locations in any of those countries. But not this movie…This movie is set mostly in France…It includes characters living in Argentina, in Spain, but once the family is reunited, it's France.

Director Antonio Hernández takes great advantage of this, and his camera travels through Paris' streets, from building to building, from house to house, from hotel to hotel; even when the main situations occur in a hospital floor…Less, a hospital room. In this room, Max (Fernando Fernán Gómez) is dying and this joins the whole family together. Spanish and French words are spoken all over by different and peculiar characters; in an objective demonstration of how life goes round and round. It happens with my family today. I have family in France, in Peru, in Venezuela, in Argentina…Sometimes it happens that events join us.

I won't expand on the things that all the characters experience (each of them has at least one magical moment); because in the end, even when there's a main event, there's a treatment and for every person of the family…That's what the movie makes us watch and hear. Víctor (Leonardo Sbaraglia) is Max's son and has to secretly help him find a person, Rancel (Alfredo Alcón), that probably doesn't even exists, because Max is probably going crazy, or back to the past. Víctor is married to Eileen (Leticia Brédice), and meets in the reunion with Pilar (Adriana Ozores), his brother's Alberto (Álex Casanovas) wife, and his own old lover. Luis (Roberto Álvarez) was married to Carmen (Ana Fernández) and had to children, but now they're separated and in Paris for different reasons; when Luis' girlfriend, Beatriz (Mónica Estarreado) gives a surprise visit...Marie (Geraldine Chaplin), Max's wife and the boys' mother, is quiet and lonely; also keeping something hidden.

Writing is outstandingly correct, with the director and his collaborator coming up with an interesting and emotional story mixing emotions with mystery…And that's probably the film's dilemma. It has a side where it wants to work as a suspense movie, thriller; and it could have gone wrong, but it didn't because the elements are correctly combined and I managed myself to put all together in my mind as a powerful movie with all its things. In the movie's intent for the thriller genre, and the mix I'm talking about, it was difficult for the team to get the right structure. Luckily, it all came out fine indeed; with a score by Víctor Reyes that has its totally strange moments, but at the same time powerful and moving moments with inspiring melodies.

The acting by the entire ensemble is decent. Sbaraglia highlights as Víctor, in a very natural performance with a lot of commitment. Adriana Ozores also highlights as Pilar, and carries some powerful scenes in her shoulders. The pros Gómez and Alcón are lovable in their characters, Chaplin gives strength to a simple Marie, Álvarez generates laughs with his Luis, Fernández goes crazy as Carmen, Casanovas makes everything look easy through Alberto's eyes, Estarreado looks as she needs to but does little as Beatriz and Brédice; well…She's still the Leticia I love to see.

The film deals with some fresh strong issues in its dramatic moments; but don't be fooled. This is not a movie about prejudices and opinions about people. It's about what each human being thinks is best for it, deciding in order to get that; and those decisions can cause lots of troubles.

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6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
A thriller on feelings, 20 March 2002
10/10
Author: gregoHP from Tolosa, Gipuzkoa, Spain

An old man is dying of cancer in a hospital, but he has something to do first. He doesn't trust no one in his family (who has gathered around him in hospital) but his younger son, Victor, who just arrived from Argentina. He is the only one to notice that something's weird with his father...

Hollywood-like thrillers are serving as a cover to introduce deep, human-relation movies to the public. We've seen it in Lantana for instance. The big misteries, the fantastic intrigues we've seen so many times in conventional American movies are here changed for feelings. Although the movie develops as a thriller, with its intrigues and misteries, at the end we see that there's no bigger mistery than human relationships.

A very good way of wrapping a typical intimist European or Asian movie with an American-style thriller cover.

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
A worthy drama, 2 June 2004
7/10
Author: Keith F. Hatcher from La Rioja, Spain



Some things sneak up virtually unannounced, such that when the result is far more satisfying than one might erstwhile have presupposed, the surprise is even more gratifying. Such is the case with this Argentinian-Spanish co-production, mostly filmed in Paris. On seeing the IMDb voting average my reaction was something like: `ya veremos..........'.

Good interpretations by all the cast, especially by Fernando Fernán Gómez and Leonardo Sbaraglia, hold the spectator, and the film grows on you as the events unfold, admirably helped along by Víctor Reyes' music, from soft and melancholic to tense and rhythmic patterns a little in the style of Philip Glass.

The old man is dying in a Parisian hospital and all the family gather around him; the youngest son, Víctor comes all the way from Argentina with his girl-friend. But it is he who begins to unravel mysteries of the past, as the old man´s mind seems to be locked on events of forty years ago.

Well built-up story line, moving with logical ease from scene to scene with good characterization all round. The denouément seemed unnecessarily stretched; it could - should - have finished on the benches of the railway station; the ensuing brief scene rounding off the film is as foreseeable as unnecessary, and added nothing to what had already been stated.

Geraldine Chaplin does not usually go too well with me, and so it is in this film; I think it is that ever-present British accent speaking Spanish that annoys me a little; perhaps this is only a little mania of mine, as my own accent speaking Spanish is no better!

Highly recommendable film for those who look for real drama without over-the-top interpretations ` a la Hollywood' and can concentrate on the dialogues and development of a nicely filmed and told story.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Astoundingly good, 26 May 2009
9/10
Author: Good-Will from Czech Republic

I rented this (Along with some other Spanish films) simply because my girlfriend is learning Spamish, so thought it would help with her revision.

We weren't expecting anything special, but we watched it together this afternoon and were both blown away about how good it was.

There are some films that I love because of the cinematography, the editing, acting or special effects, but usually the script.

And this film kept us gripped from about five minutes into it, just because of the sheer excellence of the writing and directing.

To describe the plot would spoil it for you and it's been tried before by members here who I thank because there were no spoilers in their posts.

It left a deep impression on us just because it's an excellent story, well told and acted.

I can understand why it wasn't showered with accolades because of what it's about, but if there was any justice in the world then this should have won an Oscar. It's that good.

Cheers, Will

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
The best film in Berlinale 2002, 15 October 2002
10/10
Author: dziwnytenswiat from Berlin, Germany

This film was best film in the Berlinale 2002. I have seen 4 films a day during the festival and there was no film like this. Great actors, great script, intelligent and thrilling. Everything you need for a great film was in this movie. Congratulations to Spain for their great film industry. For me the best in Europe.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
guilt eats the soul, 12 August 2006
9/10
Author: Natashenka_S from Israel

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Maximillian Martin (Fernando Fernan Gomez) is an old man dying of a brain tumour. His wife Marie (Geraldine Chaplin) and two eldest sons have brought him to Paris following his wish. They insist on a complex brain operation, even though it's rather risky and will not cure the patient but only prolong his life a little. The family is depressed, it seems that they have accepted the verdict and don't even try to encourage Max a little bit. They are also occupied with selling the family business, and the two sons have their own family problems. The youngest son Victor (Leonardo Sbaraglia), an intelligent and charming guy, comes from Argentina with his fiancée Eilin (Leticia Bredice). Victor has been estranged from his family, but he comes out to be the only person whom his father trusts.

Max is behaving very strangely. He doesn't want to take his medicines and seems to be paranoid and scared of the nurses in the hospital. He regularly attempts to escape (secretly, as if it's a prison and not a hospital) and find a man called Rancel in order to warn him against some danger that awaits him if he gets on the train. Victor doesn't understand whether this Rancel actually exists, or the tumour has affected his father's sanity. Then he asks his mother Marie if she knows who Rancel is, but Marie says that she has never heard this name. Victor doesn't really believe her and her behaviour seems to him suspicious.

Marie is a controlling mother, a woman with a quiet voice and emaciated look. She guards a dark family secret that poisons her from the inside. Victor insists on her revealing to him who this Rancel is and she tells her son a story: a long time ago Rancel and Max were together in a communist cell, but Max betrayed his comrade. Rancel was arrested and soon died in jail, and Max cannot forgive himself because of it. The truth is, however, that Rancel is alive, he is about to meet Victor and to reveal to him the whole terrible secret Marie is hiding. Marie tries to explain herself to Victor and says that their family owes its very existence to her lie, she is very probably right, and Victor has to admit it.

It is a very good and strong film about a feeling of guilt that destroys one's soul. It has some especially memorable scenes. One of them is on the train station, near the end, when Max is looking at the passers-by trying to recognize Rancel, and Victor sits by his father's side and cannot tell him that Rancel won't come. The other moment is when Rancel comes to Max's funeral and faces Marie, a very strong scene that needs no words. The acting is very good, especially the one of Leonardo Sbaraglia, Geraldine Chaplin and Fernando Fernan Gomez (his characters are always so memorable). I recommend this film to everyone.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Not bad at all, 5 January 2005
8/10
Author: Jorge Borrani-Valdes from Monterrey, México

I saw this movie by chance on a cable channel so i had no previous info about it. That's nice because there are no expectations, and the story kinda flows that way, it seems to be, at the beginning, a movie about a dying man, father of the central family and some trouble about money starts to pop, but the delusions of the sick father then begin to take importance, an enigma is brought to the ongoing lives of the family. Then movie starts turning around as some truths come up and finally a very unexpected ending. Thought it is a very slow an moody picture it has a nice rhythm, novelesque type. Acting is good specially by the leading roles (The father (Max) and his son (Victor). Music's really good and adequate for each scene. Some of this actors appear in some Almodovar films so it's a good casting i guess.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
An amazingly well-crafted film., 11 December 2002
10/10
Author: almonme from Valencia, Spain

Everything in it works perfectly, from the extraordinary performances to the atmospheric cinematography, music, etc. To me it was the best spanish movie of 2002 (better than Fresnadillo's "Intacto" or Almodovar's "Hable con ella") and among the best I've seen this year (maybe only beaten by "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "Spirited Away").

The ending deserves a special mention. It left me trembling with emotion and swallowing my tears and I can assure you that I'm not the type that cries in movies.

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