vhs video:

	"Ay, Carmela!" Carmen Maura, Andrés Pajares Hbo Home Video, 1998 average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

For SCW buffs, the movie is top notch. Down-to-the-last-detail production truly re-creates wartime Spain in every aspect, from uniforms, vehicles, weapons, posters, fashions, jokes, songs and dances, to even the streets themselves, for it seems the producers had to destroy an entire Spanish village in order to shoot the film. The menacing background radio broadcasts real-life Franco speeches, war news bulletins and fascist hymns, whereas the movie score is powerful and nostalgic. A gripping, yet comic, tale about the unsung heroism of your fellow man, I personally prefer it to Benigni's much vaunted 'La Vita E Bella!'. Don't miss it!

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Great film set during the Spanish Civil War

The great director Carlos Saura started with an outstanding cast and authentic detailed war time sets to create this superb film about republican vaudeville entertainers who take a wrong turn during their road show and wind up in the hands of fascist troops. Expecting to be executed, they are given a chance to entertain the fascists and obtain freedom by a stage struck Italian officer. But a chance encounter with Polish international brigade prisoners of war creates an emotional conflict for Carmen Maura. She must go through with an act that she finds distasteful and dreads the possibility that the POWs will be in the audience. The details of wartime Spain are excellent and the supporting cast is outstanding. The title of the film is taken from a charming Civil War song which also happens to be the name of the act, Carmela y Paulino. Saura has created a film that is both light and charming but with an underlying seriousness about this great tragic period of Spanish history.

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Beautiful and thought provoking


This movie is brilliant!
...Three performers travel across Spain with an anti-Franco troupe risking their lives to fuel the resistance against a fascist government takeover. After being captured, they must choose between their freedom and their lives...
Beautifully put together with wonderful acting and an intriguing script, I recommend this movie to everyone. "Ay, Carmela!" is not only deep, moving, and interesting, but it still keeps one laughing from time to time with funny jokes. You really ought to watch this movie, even if you know nothing about the Spanish Civil War!



DVD version (doesn't work with most U.S. DVD players):

Ay, Carmela! (¡Ay, Carmela!) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Spain ]

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¡Ay,Carmela!

Even if you do not know a lot about the Spanish Civil War, you will enjoy this incredible movie about that time period in history. There is comedy, tragedy, pathos, suspense and wisdom in this story of a piece of the war as seen through the eyes of two traveling entertainers who happen to land up in the wrong place at the wrong time. The film crescendos to an ending of hope, believe it or not. It does not matter if you understand Spanish, the subtitles are excellent and the performances are superb. I have even used this film for an AP Spanish class of high school seniors and it left a lasting impression on them!

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Franco Flaminco

**Parts of Plot Revealed*

The begining of this film had some motion to it but when it couldn't decide if it was a comedy or an attack on Franco, it lost the steam and everyone became confused. It didn't even work because it was dull and monotonous also. The plot concerns a comedy acting troupe who was hired by the Republican officer corps to entertain enlisted troops. We see Carmela, who is a robust and an attractive older woman who can dance the flamenco. Her husband, a weak, tired former opera singer who is so dull he can't even make love to her and their companion, a young mute who is always reprimanded. We follow them as they attempt to go to Valencia and away from the war. When they are captured by Nationalist troops, everything goes insane, they are locked up in a detainee camp and they witness communists and other prisoners of the "evil" nationalists get executed. Problem here is, the Republicans, and more so the communists executed just as many prisoners but obviously this is supposed to be an "anti-Franco" film and it attempts to criticize the regime in a satirical way that does really look like satire, just boring confusion.

The husband is a character that is highly annoying and overbearing, he whines and slobbers all over the place because he is being dehumanized by so-called 'barbarians'. Carmen is just a cheap floozey who flounces her breasts, her breasts were shown once and every man in the film either touched or wanted to grope them. Silly. The troupe is made to perform in front of the Nationalists and it is one of the most boring endurances ever. Carmela shouts out against tryanny in a scene that looks like an exaggerated "Julius Cesear" and she signals the death of the Republic. How are we, the intelligent audience supposed to believe that such a bunch of selfish, pestering middle class nit wits were out for Democracy in the first place? Thing is, we can't and that is the problem with this film, we don't have reason to believe anything it tells us.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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