Historia de Estrella (2003) (TV)

User Rating:

4.6/10   

Director:

Manuel Estudillo

Writers:

Mercedes Cruz (writer)
Nacho Faerna (writer)

Release Date:

16 December 2003 (Spain)

Genre:

Drama

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Eva Marciel	...	Estrella
Lolita Flores	...	Madre de Estrella
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ricardo Amador	...	Joaquin
Paco Catalá	...	Marcial
Arantxa de Juan	...	Amparo
Ruth Gabriel
Amalia Hornero	...	Carmen
Jesús Noguero
Pepo Oliva
Terele Pávez
Charo Reina
Antonia Reyes	...	María Jesús
María Alfonsa Rosso	...	Modista (as Alfonsa Rosso)
Damián Velasco	...	Don Cipriano

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

Spain

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Color

Company:

Antena 3 Televisión

Soundtrack:

Maria se bebe las calles

I so much wanted it to be good......but shoddy in the end

I was mostly attracted to this film on seeing that not only was this an Antena 3TV production for home consumption, but also because Terele Pávez had a parte to play. I also thought that the setting of the film could be interesting, especially judging by a previous production from this TV company, `Padre Coraje' (qv), certainly one of the best here in recent years.

However, I became somewhat dumfounded. There were practically no genuine gipsy accents and pronunciation, such that the dialogues sounded false from the outset. This detracted greatly from the authenticity of the story line. I should add to that, in most cases, young gipsy girls get married around 15-16 and not around 25 as Eva Marciel appeared to be in the film. Also the fact that any gipsy-girl who dare defy her `patriarch' (the head of the clan), normally with very fixed macho ideas, would be bundled off into the darkest depths of deep dungeons for the rest of her natural days, which, evidently, would be far from natural.

However, Estrella, a very lovely-looking Eva Marciel, gets away with it, refuses to marry her predestined old-dog as husband and wife and even has a glorious adventure out of town, down the coast, in a suburb which, in this case, definitely looked more authentic as a gipsy `barrio'. But those very nicely-decorated flats in Barcelona were very far from being gipsyish in the slightest.

Terele Pávez could do nothing to save the production as she was definitely miscast for the film. Eva Marciel did everything to save the production, but only because she is so gorgeously beautiful, such an attractive face with those dark black eyes, that long dark hair flowing down her back to ........ where it stops being her back ........ So, such gallantry and sighs from the gentlemen among us (I insist I am a gentleman), but the TV film , so fixed to TV film concepts, does not go very far and is just a way to fill up some 90 lazy minutes if there is nothing else on. Which, lately, seems to be the most likely....... If on top of that I mention that Estrella's voice often overcomes the microphone causing reverberations which render her nearly incomprehensible at times, you might well ask why they did not throw the microphonist into a muddy puddle.

`Lolita' Flores is also in the film, and again surprise (Hable con Ella - qv), as she was almost the only authentically cast among the leading actors in this film. But she is, as a person, about 75% gipsy anyway. Thus, her part in this film was about the best to be had on offer.

Apart from that, this film was, very unfortunately, rather a `chapuza' as we call it here in Spain: a shoddy job.