interpreter Reviews

Crazy from the Heart (1991 TV Movie)

A great romantic comedy-drama about two people who have to choose between listening to their hearts, or to their whispering neighbors.

[10/10 · 2 June 2007]

This is a great little movie that I happened to find 2nd-hand in Dublin in a video store liquidation sale. How sad that it never really seems to have got much play on TV over here. Can't get it on DVD, as far as I can tell.

Nice script with well-developed characters, but an even better ensemble cast made up of some of the best actors in the business. Lahti and Blades are great, and the highly under-appreciated William Russ is wonderful, as is everyone else involved in this gem.

The main characters try to work their budding attraction and love for each other into their lives, fending off first their own preconceived notions, and then those of their families, friends and colleagues.

El Sur (1983)

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

[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.