This film has a lot of comments, so I'll confine mine to the character of Lourdes.
The first time we see Lourdes on the escalator we can tell she is going to blossom. She watches Rafael until she sees her opportunity, then blackmails him into loving her. This seems unworkable and indeed it is. How can you blackmail someone and love them at the same time? Sometimes Lourdes seems genuinely in love with Rafael and wants nothing else but for him to return her affections. At other times (particularly when she gets a successful career of her own) she seems only to want to punish Rafael for ignoring her.
I am having my own private Spanish film festival at the moment and it occurs to me that "machismo" is not a Spanish word for nothing. Maybe pure revenge would have been too much of a moral tale. Or maybe it would just not have been Spanish (I can't help thinking of *Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown* when I think of Lourdes unwisely falling for Rafael).
Three things I liked about this film: 1. Rafael is very aware of how shallow he is, but talks of how he will pursue hedonism nevertheless. 2. I loved Lourdes commanding her troops. They were supposed to look ugly but the way Lourdes strode, and high-fived her soldiers lent them a seductive power. 3. Don Antonio's eternally smouldering hair.
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