Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Penélope Cruz | ... | Melibea (as Penelope Cruz) | |
Terele Pávez | ... | Celestina (as Terele Pavez) | |
Juan Diego Botto | ... | Calisto | |
Maribel Verdú | ... | Areusa (as Maribel Verdu) | |
Jordi Mollà | ... | Pármeno (as Jordi Molla) | |
Nancho Novo | ... | Sempronio | |
Nathalie Seseña | ... | Lucrecia | |
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Carlos Fuentes | ... | Sosia |
Candela Peña | ... | Elicia | |
Anna Lizaran | ... | Alisa (as Ana Lizaran) | |
Sergio Villanueva | ... | Tristán | |
Ángel de Andrés López | ... | Centurio (as Angel de Andres Lopez) | |
Lluís Homar | ... | Pleberio (as Lluis Homar) | |
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Ana Risueño | ... | Poncia |
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Rodrigo García | ... | Crito (as Rodrigo Garcia) |
The young nobleman Calisto falls in love with Melibea, the daughter of a rich merchant. Calisto's servant Sempronio suggests they get the sorceress Celestina to further the romance. However Calisto's other servant Parmeno is suspicious of Celestina, as he knows about her tricks. After Celestina convinces Melibea of Calisto's love and arranges a brief clandestine meeting between them, Calisto gives Celestina a valuable chain of gold. Both servants are not satisfied with the whores supplied by Celestina and demand more from her, thus setting off a dramatic sequence of events. Written by Will Gilbert
Interesting movie to look at, but failed to make me really care about the characters. The dialogue and manner of speaking was rather artificial and overly-theatrical; as if it were trying to go for a Shakespeare-lite effect. The characters' actions sometimes seemed to be nonsensical and in service to the plot rather than being the way people in such a situation would really behave; they would often act against their own obvious best interests with little to gain. If there was any kind of theme here I'm not sure what it was: Greed is bad? Let love take a natural course, without resorting to supernatural means to advance it? And I'm not even sure that Celestina really did any "magic" to get the two lovers together; she was just more of a persuasive facilitator than potion-brewing sorceress. I myself didn't have any problem with the sex/nudity; there's nothing wrong with looking at beautiful bodies and people enjoying each other. In the DVD I saw, however, some of the full-frontal nudity was blurred out, and some--a scene of Mr. Botto arising out of a bathtub--was not, so I guess someone somewhere DID have a problem with it.