Backroads

Having recently seen and commented on `La Buena Estrella' which turned out better than expected, I thought I would check out `Carreteras Secundarias' when it popped up on the little screen a few nights ago, again coupling Antonio Resines with Maribel Verdú and adding Miriam Díaz Aroca for good measure; though frankly there is not much to measure. The two young ladies mentioned only had to be sexy little playmates for the errant husband (Resines) travelling around with his son (Fernando Ramallo) trying to make a living from what might be called itinerant selling but is best in Spanish `trapicheo'.

Falling back on the usual facile foibles running from the quixotic to the `cantamañanas' (literally a tomorrow singer, as today he only has a lot to say but not very much to go on), the film is at best a light-hearted entertainment. However, it must be noted that after the usual ready-made formulas common to this type of film and this type of actors, well into the film there are some interesting scenes which might just be taken a little more seriously, but the end scene just falls back onto the predictable frivolessness of time-worn and definitely overdone quixote-macho traits.

But, then, I suppose, Spanish humour at times arduously overworks its shortcomings.

Resines and Ramallo are not too bad; the delightful ladies do just that without any effort and scarcely avoid being merely laughable; some of the coastal scenes are pretty (the film was shot in about three quarters of Spain!), and the music at times accompanies very well. But apart from that, if there is nothing else on the box and you want a bit of light entertainment, you could see a lot worse in Spanish filmography. Perhaps it is just that Martínez Lázaro has not moved on very much from the early seventies