ano_nimass

I absolutely loved this movie.

Satyajit Ray's Jalsaghar tackled a similar theme.

Jalsaghar (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051792/)

Also, could this Chilean version be a remake of a 1976 Mexican classic also called Coronacion?

Coronacion (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072823/)

The movie invokes the crumbling of colonial values and ethos so poignantly.

However, is the next generation (of the maid and her paramour) any better than the fading one of the landlord?

The acting is really deep and well performed.

Also cinematography and lighting for such themes which is always a challenge, are done very well.

The movie really makes you think of what will happen to any family at the top of the game, if a tradition is not put in place to preserve the values and vitality.

Being a special parent of and active in the community of special (aka mentally handicapped) children, this story hit close to home. Especially the way in which it illuminated two very subtle yet extraordinarily important aspects of the behavior and psychology of this child as well as a parent.

In the movie, the biological father Gianni is shown to have "given up" the child Paolo to another couple. I would interpret this not so much in a literal way, but more in an allegorical way, since even in real life, due to the trauma and complexity of parenting a special child, parents may "lose touch" with the child, even if the child is in house. It is a huge challenge, especially balancing the child's care with other aspects of life including social, career, health, other siblings of the child etc. All too often, the special child itself becomes only a tiny part of the whole "system" and mind numbing "details" of providing care.

The film also brilliantly portrays the resolution ["""potential spoiler***] of the above dilemma thats all too common in special parents' lives. Initially Gianni tries to deal with Paolo in a loving yet ultimately paternalistic way. But this doesn't get him anywhere near his goal of bonding with Paolo. In the end, only when Gianni literally breaks down, and becomes as helpless as a child himself, and lets Paolo comfort him as a father would, does the real bonding between father and son occur on a level playing field.

This is an incredibly insightful object lesson, and is so true in the often dark, challenging yet ultimately fulfilling lives of special parents.

This movie is a veritable ode to the divine relationship that exists between such parents and their special children.

I rate this movie 10/10 due to its authenticity and humanism.

PS: Another movie on the same topic, but from a siblings perspective is A Time For Drunken Horses by Bahman Ghobadi.

**** Potential spoiler alert - My comments may provide a tangential hint of inflection points in the movie ****

Being a native of India and living in the US, this movie hit so close to home on so many counts. Incredible movie!

* Feels refreshingly unscripted, which is very liberating because it lets the viewer become a part of the unfolding story without being led by the nose thru it.

* The conversation at the captains table made perfect sense for me, given the babel that is India - 1000s of languages, yet holding together as a perfectly functioning anarcho-democracy!!!

* The deliberate decision by the mother to go by ship from Europe to India, discovering the world at a deliberate laid back pace, taking several weeks when she could just fly there in 10 hrs. By coincidence, I've been researching for several months just such a journey, principally for my daughter.

* We've directly experienced that effects of history that's discussed in the movie - chiefly the influences of Portuguese, English, French, Turkish, Arab, and lately, American ...

* The devastating effects of mass-scale violence by "remote control." Again, the story of real peoples' lives both in India and in the US, and of course of late it seems, world wide ...

Loved this movie absolutely, especially the self deprecating humor of the Spanish cast members of the movie within the movie, and the symbolic overtones.

My main question is: who sang the song for Penelope Cruz in the tavern scene? Herself? If not, who is the singer?

Also, in the US DVD release, there seems to be a lot of cuts, some of which is shown in the special features chapter. But this does not detract from the beauty of the movie. The cast is of course, truly full of very high stature actors. I was thrilled to find Hanna Schygulla, one of the moist most talented actresses especially in the movies of Fassbinder.

I believe that in this universe, all possible combination of events already exist, just waiting to be perceived by an appropriately 'tuned' entity like a brain. In this view, time itself does not exist, but is just an illusion created by the limited perceptive 'bandwidth' of the tuner.

So far, only people in extreme mental conditions like trance, epilepsy, yogic gurus, hallucinogenics and the near-dead are speculated to experience this 'timelessness' of the true reality. It was impossible for a 'normal' person on an ordinary day to experience this.

Or so I thought, until I saw this movie. Cinematic ally, the director and cinematographer has pulled off a miracle in the way he has conveyed this profound concept of the timeless universe of interlocking patterns of events!

In particular, the scene where the old man Simone/davide asks Giovanna for a dance, and as the camera pans across the window frame, the viewer is transported back and forth in time almost as in a trance, with the incredible music adding to this experience. It dissolved all character and behavioral boundaries of past, present, future, mater/student, father/daughter, lover/lover... This scene brought torrents of tears to my eyes, and I must've rewound and replayed it 30 times in one sitting...

Incredible movie.

I disagree with the characterizing of this movie as 'creamy romance' It is in fact a very hard edged, cerebral movie, filled with great illustrations of some of the mysteries of scientific concepts like time, space, causality etc