20 centímetros (2005) User Reviews

Not for all tastes

[newland80 · 7/10 · 20 June 2005]

After a promising short film ("Hongos") and an excellent feature length debut ("Piedras"), director-writer Ramón Salazar surprises all with "20 centímetros", a compelling musical which won't leave anyone indifferent.

Certainly this is not for all tastes. Instead of taking the easy way out of mixing musical and comedy, Salazar chooses drama and depicts the sub-world of prostitution with such a raw perspective that many people felt extremely uncomfortable during the film. "20 centímetros" is, after all, the love child of Von Trier's "Dancer in the dark" and early Almodóvar. As I said, not for all tastes.

Mónica Cervera, who was in Salazar's previous directorial efforts, is the star of the film, and she really shines in her one-woman-show. She sings her heart out and gives a terrific performance as Marieta, the transvestite hooker who dreams musical sequences in which she is the sole star. Other cast members include Lola Dueñas, Rossy de Palma and Najwa Nimri in brief roles, and also Pilar Bardem in a cameo. Unknowns Concha Galán and Miguel O'Dogherty play pivotal roles in this eclectic musical. Pablo Puyol, Marieta's leading man, plays Reponedor, a simpleton, gracefully and shows that he could surprise everybody if he's given the right chance.

What I liked most were the musical numbers, though. Some of them are extremely effective in narrative terms "Parole, parole, parole", and others are so well made that it doesn't matter if they don't add anything story-wise ("Quiero ser santa" is a prodigy of make-up, scenery and costume). My favorite, however, is the one in which Marieta and Reponedor sing a song each at the same time.

If you are willing for something new give "20 centímetros" a chance, specially if you like musicals and you are not afraid to watch some of the most marginal strata of our society. Also, watch it for the great performance of Mónica Cervera, an actress that could be huge in the future.

A Colorful, Zesty Extravaganza with Heart from Ramón Salazar

[gradyharp · 8/10 · 11 December 2006]

Writer/actor/director Ramón Salazar ('Amnèsia', 'Piedras') is becoming a formidable presence on the Spanish cinema scene. He takes risks, he knows he takes them, and he makes them turn out in his favor. '20 Centimeters' is a mix of a story that is part hilarious musical comedy and part sensitive character portrayal of people who live just outside the edge of what is cruelly called 'normal': the mix makes for a jolly fluffy cake that smacks of Salazar's predecessors Almodóvar and Fellini.

Marieta (the enormously talented Mónica Cervera) is a work in progress: she dresses as a woman, has breast implants, is on painful steroid injections, but still retains the 20 centimeter remnant that prevents her from becoming the totally feminine woman she desires. She has a heart of gold, works the streets as a prostitute with special gifts to earn money for her transgender surgery. But at home she shares an apartment with a dwarf Tomás (the very handsome and talented Miguel O'Dogherty) who squanders Marieta's money on ticket scams that don't work, cares for her friend Berta's (Concha Galán) son, and provides emotional support to her fellow sex workers. She has a major problem: she has narcolepsy and falls asleep for several hours at a time in the most inappropriate places (!) and during these sleep periods dreams of Broadway musical numbers occur in which she is the singing (in Spanish, French and English) and dancing star with a cast of hundreds in the wildest of costumes! Marieta yearns for love and when she notices on Raul (the very hunky and talented Pablo Puyol) she feels she is in love, especially when Raul returns her attention, takes her home to meet his rather low class gross parents and family, and most importantly physically falls in love with her - AND her 20 centimeter unwanted obstruction to happiness. How Marieta comes to grips with her focal surgical dream versus her chance for love is the tender way the film concludes.

Mónica Cervera carries this very difficult role extremely well, not only allowing us to see the inner suffering being she truly is but also popping the cork off the champagne bottle of musical production numbers that pepper this fun movie. The cast is uniformly fine (Pilar Bardem, the mother of superstar Javier Bardem, has a fine little cameo role) and the direction show that Ramón Salazar has tight reins on his talent. This is a film that is bawdy fun without ever spilling over into the realm of bad taste. Watching it is a toe-tapping good time! Grady Harp

Worked for Me

[ccianciola · 7/10 · 7 December 2006]

Although 20 Centimeters is not a flawless musical, or a flawless film representation of trans people...I loved It. I had a dumb smile on my face almost the entire time. I found the portrayal of trans-people refreshing because the tragedy ratio was lower than most films that deal with trans-women in the sex industry especially.I also enjoy a quirkiness in films that leave them less polished and that is just about aesthetic preference.It was a light film about things that aren't always offered levity. Hooray for that.I thought the acting was great and the idiosyncrasies of the plot and supporting characters, engaging. Oh, and I liked the outfits.

Didn't work for me.

[Red-125 · 7/10 · 2 October 2006]

"20 Centímetros" (2005), written and directed by Ramón Salazar, is the story of a transvestite who would like to be rid of the 20 centimeters-- about 8 inches--of sexual organ that prevents her from being the woman she wants to be. The plot becomes more complex because Marieta (Mónica Cervera) falls in love with a man who likes her just the way she is.

There are two more subplots--one involves Marieta's house-mate, who is a wildly inept businessman, and the other is about a woman who lives in Marieta's apartment house and who is involved with some very shady deals, that are often frustrated because she can't find a babysitter.

The supposed charm of the movie comes from the fact that Marieta has narcolepsy. When she falls into a trance, she dreams of herself in Technicolor musical production numbers.

The problem with this film for me was that the musical numbers, which should have kept the movie from just being a Spanish "Transamerica," weren't very charming. The classic movie musicals are colorful and vibrant--these were more cutting edge and threatening.

I don't see "20 Centimetros" as a GLBT film any more than "Transamerica" was a GLBT film. However, when it was shown at Rochester's Dryden Theatre, the crowd was composed almost exclusively of gay male couples. The man who introduced the film said the he chose it because of the musical numbers. I'm not sure if he had previewed it before he selected it. It's the kind of movie that looks better on paper than it plays on the screen.

When an Appendage Becomes an Impediment for Happiness

[nycritic · 9/10 · 4 March 2007]

Thanks to Pedro Almodovar, Spain has birthed more directors who have explored the fluidity between the sexes in some truly groundbreaking movies. Now comes Ramon Salazar who recruits Rossy de Palma, an Almodovarian veteran, in a small but crucial part, and an actress previously seen in CRIMEN FERPECTO, Monica Cervera. Both have the physicalities suited for the nature of the roles they are playing -- with their androgynous faces, they actually do look like men on the verge of being female (which, actually, is what de Palma's character has already become). Both are women of the night, looking for a quick fix to give them enough cash to get through their petty existences. Only that Marieta (Cervera) suffers from narcolepsy, and when she passes out, she moves into the realms of camera! lights! action! and the world fills with pop tunes in both English and Spanish. In these musicals, she is the star at the center, she is the focus of everyone's attention and the object of total adulation.

Not an original move -- it's been done before, most recently in CHICAGO where the musical numbers all occurred within Roxie Hart's mind and she didn't have to pass out for them to take place -- but 20 CENTIMETROS is a daring piece of work. It does to the genre what TRANSAMERICA started, by bringing a subject that has a long way to go still in terms of discussion and acceptance and bringing it to the spotlight (literally) under the form of a woman who is also on the down-and-out and needs that extra money to be able to "break free" as the musical number late in the film -- a Queen song Marieta performs -- points at. What TRANSAMERICA didn't do, and this movie certainly does, is flip the roles between the sexes and give Marieta the dominating power in all of her sexual encounters. It only shows how different the European position on the issue is -- where Americans still tend to emasculate men in this position in order to establish what is traditional and non-traditional, Europeans could care less about "who's on top, who's on bottom" and when Marieta falls for a hunk (Pablo Puyol) who has a penchant for being on the submissive side of her 20 centimeters (for lack of a better term), roles fly out the window real quick.

However, it's here where the movie somehow fails... if both Marieta and her Man are happy with each other, her insistence on crossing the ultimate line seems a little selfish. However, having seen several documentaries on the subject of male-to-female transsexuals, their issues go much deeper than that. So it's possible to assume that both Marieta and her Guy are two people who are almost right for each other. Just not quite. At least, in this way, 20 CENTIMETROS doesn't become an exercise in schmaltzy happiness, but still -- somehow I believe it would have been even more groundbreaking to leave things as they were between the two characters (since the movie invests a wallop in establishing how right they are for each other and both actors do manage to create an intense couple) and not make Marieta so pig-headed in her quest for femininity. After all, her Guy does accept her as she is. It's too bad she cannot do the same.

Olé

[Pieter050 · 6/10 · 16 June 2006]

Ramón Salazar's directed this movie-with-music and I do not particularly like what he has done with it. The story is not that spectacular (transsexual wants operation to remove his penis) but very thin indeed so extra drama on the side is needed and added to fill a whole movie. Too many sidelines and extra, needless information is given. The switches to the musical scenes are not that brilliant -it's quite logic to have them when Marieta has her narcoleptic attack but there are a few out of the blue and they don't move me. Could be the singing and dancing of Leading Lady Mónica Cervera -I am not that much impressed with her at all. Of course we're spoiled after The Singing Detective and -more recent- Moulin Rouge or Chicago. It's a must for a director to follow one's own path but one can't behave like those movies were never made! The movie is not bizarre enough for me -but the subject should be. The choices Salazar made are a bit on the safe side and they miss a bizarre kind of fantasy.

The good bits: Chevi Muraday made very nice choreography's. Suggestive or just festive: very nice work indeed. Pleased to see that dancers can act as Pablo Puyol proves. Without any shamelessness at all he acts and dances his way through this movie. Bravo. The bests scenes are for the lady's at Marieta's apartment! Wonderful characters indeed played by Spain's finest actresses. Brava.

I'm sorry but I can't find the name of the elderly actress who plays Marieta's hormone-shot-giving friend. During her telephone conversation we can see a photograph of her at young age -and that scene is just a little miracle -it moved me to tears. Bravo Salazar. Could have lasted longer.

Pieter

Hilariously irreverent...

[bijou-2 · 9/10 · 19 March 2006]

this story of a narcoleptic transvestite hooker with more than an angry inch has the audacity to open with a musical number from the Spanish classic TOMBOLA. It's stands the Spanish musical on it's head better than even Almodovar has managed before.

For those familiar with Spanish cinema from the Franco era, this is a worthy companion piece to BAD EDUCATION. The two films together are the equivalent of a stealth attack on SARITA MONTIEL, MARISOL and JOSELITO movies.

For those unfamiliar, what remains is a camp satire of the MTV generation where style overcomes substance and drama is really black comedy no matter how tragic.

Fine performances from a great cast, particularly Monica Cervera, who manages to be ugly and sexy at the same time and Pablo Puyol as the masculine stud who likes Marieta's eight inches a little too much.

Worth seeing at once!

a fraud

[cocuyo100 · 3 October 2008]

The movie is a fraud, a joke that has nothing to do with real-life transsexuals. It is a macho fantasy invested in the huge penis and the fraudulent make-believe that it belongs to a man who in fact is a woman--an actress. The casting would be honest to life if the role was played by a man-- why not cast her gay boy friend actor as the cross-dresser to wants to have his penis removed? Transamerica is more honest in presenting a man, who although played by an actress, is more convincing as someone who is genuinely born with a female genetic make up and by virtue of that wants to go cross genders to finally become as fully female as possible. In 20 Centímetros, which is in fact a male gay phallus fantasy, the man who wants a new gender as a female is never established as a genetic case of someone who was born in the wrong sex anatomy and resulting gender social identity as a boy--who was more female than male although he was a boy. What we have here is a male sex worker (played by a woman) who enhances her sex trade (as they do in Bahia, Brazil, with silicone) by keeping her penis, in order to better satisfy clients who are gays or bisexuals and who find it easier to have sex with men who do not look like men with the help of silicone. 20 Centímetros is a gay farce that exploits the vogue of transsexuals in Spain and elsewhere

Hilarious musical with some naughty look at the problem

[owjan-45979 · 7/10 · 4 October 2020]

It seems filth everywhere taste the same but the way of looking at it is different. This movie was better than I expected, it was light and cheerful.

Imitation Almodovar with some redeeming qualities

[ekeby · 5/10 · 7 January 2007]

Vibrant music, bright colors, drag queens and transgenders working the street, pathos, laughter--you name it, this film's got it. You'll find much of the same in any Almodovar film, but this isn't Almodovar by a long shot. You have to admire a lot about it, the actors, the direction, the inventive costumes and make up, but ultimately, despite the catalog of intriguing aspects, the film doesn't add up to very much.

Marieta's narcolepsy doesn't serve the plot except as a device for dream sequence song and dance numbers. These episodes seemed like music videos dropped in out of nowhere. While they're bright and energetic, a lot of the time I couldn't help thinking how much better they would have been--particularly the choreography--if done by an American studio in the 1940s and '50s. I shock myself when I admit that, but it's what came to mind as I watched this film.

There's enough storyline in this movie for three separate films, which is part of the problem and part of the charm. Although I don't regret having seen 20 Centimeters, I wouldn't recommend you go out of your way to see it, unless you're part of the trans-gendered community. In which case, it's part of your heritage.

Hidden Gem

[happysoftltdd · 8/10 · 14 April 2022]

An underrated piece of foreign queer cinema! I stumbled across this film on a "disturbing movie" binge and was surprised with a genuinely fun and heartwarming little musical with absolutely lovely cinematography and music. Absolutely lovely!

They Should Have Cut More than 20 Centimeters

[wricketts · 1/10 · 3 July 2006]

This is one of the most godawful pieces of Euro trash dreck ever to come across the pond. It makes no sense, there is no acting, there is no characterization, there is surely no motivation, and the plot is about as limp as overcooked pasta. The Spanish have been putting out some pretty bad movies lately, but this one's brow is so low you'd have to dig up the floorboards to see it. The intercutting of the so-called "musical numbers" is the only slightly charming feature of this snoozer -- and I say slightly because the choreography is repetitive and dull (about what you'd expect from a high-school production of *Grease*) and after about the third pointless "here we burst into song," you'll want to open a vein rather than sit through more camping and mugging. On a technical note: The sound on the DVD is pretty bad, but maybe that's a good point. The less you hear, the happier you'll be.

a fabulous Bollywood version of Transamerica and Nights of Cabiria

[rberg · 10/10 · 30 January 2006]

This is a completely fabulous movie. Imagine a Bollywood version of Transamerica directed by Pedro Almodovar from a script by Dennis Potter. Imagine taking LSD and going to a showing of Breakfast On Pluto which has had its IRA scenes replaced by scenes from Nights of Cabiria. This is perhaps not a date movie for the faint of heart but if genre-bending and gender-bending don't scare you, this movie is relentlessly, joyfully entertaining. There's Something About Mary all right, and it's eight inches long! The dance sequences are great; they had so much delicious stuff to look at all over the frame that I had decided that I didn't have a moment to spare for looking at the subtitles during them and was relieved when our heroine starting singing in English. Given the difficulties of foreign film distribution in this country, you may have to root around for this movie but once you find it it's a handful and a half!

and I loathed 16 Blocks....

[ptb-8 · 2/10 · 25 July 2007]

Imitating another person's already successful work does not automatically make yours the same... here we have a film that is an imitation Almodovar pic from about 1989.. a sort of musical version of WOMEN ON THE VERGE mixed with ideas from MY PRIVATE IDAHO and imagery from The UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG or the mid 60s Mediterranean musicals from Italy or even Greece (Aliki Vougyouklaki, all is forgiven)... 20 CENTERMETERS is actually a funny/charming idea in that it is about someone desperate who has narcolepsy and when asleep imagines big musical numbers... but that is the extent of the funny or genuinely attractive part. sadly, guess what, and yes no surprise, it is set in the world of street prostitutes, selfish squabbling misfits and shabby apartment blocks with miserable squalor. Why? This film could be more like CLUELESS for adults rather than obvious extensions of already grimy scenes copied from Almodovar. I wanted to like this film but I became tired of it and found the musical numbers, whilst slavishly amusing just became tiresome. The sexual content is far too explicit and the bathroom scenes while our 'leading actress' is alone and getting off on herself are truly disgusting. 20 Centimeters is a disappointment... and I never thought I would ever say that.

hope to see more of this kind

[marcoantonioha · 8/10 · 11 January 2007]

Beautiful masterpiece! I'm not into tranny stuff or what so ever, but i enjoyed this movie lots!!!!!!! Fun and musicals, perfect mixture! You go on, Spanish Cinema!!!!!! There's this boy with gender assignment issues and his entire adventure in seeking for the better. Perhaps it is the natural portrait of transgenderers in Europe, but its a complete hymn for the ones who are left behind in Latin America, or elsewhere. The soundtrack selection is totally accurate, and the cast drives you into a very profound study upon the emotions that a girl in the body of a male can cast away. Complete A+ in your movie collection. You can't ignore a film like 20cm if you are a fan of Spanish Cinema.

Really not sure how to rate this one

[DarkSpotOn · 3/10 · 16 September 2023]

I was expecting a horror shock extreme film, instead i got a movie about a movie about a trans lady having a difficult life, and her having her drama's dye to her wanting a operation, which she does in the end. Now, i think this movie has a story to say, and the plot was not too bad.

Acting was alright, everything here is okay. However, my big problem with this movie, are the music scenes. I have never watched a musical in my life, but 60 percent of this movie is just singing, and it gets really boring. I want to follow the plot, and see where will our heroes end up, and instead i keep being interupted with these annoying musicals.

But then again i watched this after going through a feaver, and still kind of having it, so i did not have my full cells activated, maybe if i watched this without a feaver i'd rate it higher.

Also, the comedy. There's only two or three funny scenes in this film, most of it is just a drama really. There's really tiny tiny bit of comedy, and that's it, there's nearly no comedy.

Ultimately if you are into musicals this is for you, as for me... I am really not sure.

Good--but it's been done

[preppy-3 · 8/10 · 18 June 2006]

A narcoleptic transsexual (Monica Cervera) wants the 20 centermeters between her legs removed so she can become a true women. Then she meets hot, handsome, hunky Raul (Pablo Puyol) who likes what she has between her legs--a lot. She loves him...but enough to keep what she has? Also the film shows her fantasies and dreams which break out into elaborate (to say the least) musical numbers.

The basic idea (depressing story intercut with elaborate musical numbers) has been done before ("Pennies From Heaven", "Dancer in the Dark", "Moulin Rogue")--this is only different in the subject matter. I mostly liked it--the musical numbers are just great--full of energy and some incredible dancing (the "True Love" number stops the show). But the film is slowly paced and depressing. The acting of Cervera and Puyol (who has guts taking this role on) saves it. Also this has some fairly explicit nudity (male) and sex--be forewarned. Worth catching. I give it an 8.