Si te dicen que caí (1989)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Vicente Aranda

Writers:

Vicente Aranda (writer)
Juan Marsé (novel)

Release Date:

19 September 1989 (Spain)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

In the post Spanish civil war years, Catalan kids would sit in circles among the ruins and tell stories...

Plot Keywords:

Spanish Civil War | Erotica | Female Frontal Nudity | Female Nudity | Male Female Relationship

Awards:

5 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Victoria Abril	...	Menchu / Ramona / Aurora Nin
Jorge Sanz	...	Daniel Javaloyes 'Java'
Antonio Banderas	...	Marcos
Javier Gurruchaga	...	Conrado-Señor Galán
Guillermo Montesinos	...	Fusam
Joan Miralles	...	Nadal
Ferran Rañé	...	Taylor
Lluís Homar	...	Palau
Carlos Tristancho	...	Sendra
Juan Diego Botto	...	Sarnita
María Botto	...	Fueguiña
Luis Giralte	...	Luis
Marc Barahoma	...	Mingo
Ariadna Navarro	...	Juanita
Cesáreo Estébanez	...	Ñito

Also Known As:

Aventis (Spain: Catalan title)
If They Tell You I Fell

Runtime:

120 min

Country:

Spain

Language:

Spanish | Catalan

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Argentina:18 | Chile:18 | Spain:18

Filming Locations:

Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain

Company:

Ideas y Producciones Cinematográficas (IPC)

If they tell you Vicente Aranda fell....

The director of this film, Vicente Aranda, would have been better off engaging someone else to work on the adaptation of Juan Marse's novel. The film is a mishmash of ideas, with a heavy leaning toward the director's leftist convictions. These heavily political situations play better in Spain than abroad. This is why some of Spanish films fail to reach an wide audience when they decide to concentrate on conflicts that are only interesting to a limited public. It would have been another story if the film would have treated the Marse novel with another slant instead of the heavy treatment it received by Aranda.

Mr. Aranda decided to pair together Victoria Abril and Jorge Sanz, who he will cast on a later film, "Amantes". It's notorious that when a Spanish director runs out of ideas, he will immediately revert to show explicit sex, as a way to make the viewer think he is so ahead of the times by showing raw sex, as a way of being cool. The mess he made of the film, which thankfully we saw on a borrowed DVD, shows a film without any merits. Totally wasted are Antonio Bandera and Juan Diego Botto. Jorge Sanz, is the big enigma of the Spanish cinema and Victoria Abril triple role doesn't do anything for her or for the viewer, who feels lost in trying to make sense of this mess.

Avoid "Aventis" at all costs.