Belle Epoque
|
List Price: Our Price: $17.99 You Save: $1.95 (10%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $13.77 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Belle Epoque
Movie Review: Belle Epoque
Summary: 5 Stars
On of the funniest cutiest movies that I have ever seen. I almost forget that there are subtitlesMovie Review: if bill forsyth had been spanish ...
Summary: 4 Stars
jorge sanz (a looker) stars as a soldier deserting from the spanish army during the 1930s civil wars, taken into a family, who proceeds to fall in love with and seduce all four daughters, while forging a father/son relationship with the patriarch. touching and kinky and off beat, a worthy winner of the oscar as best foreign language film in 1992.
Movie Review: Belle Epoque
Summary: 4 Stars
I really liked this movie. I have to do a spanish project with this movie. It is a good chick flick, but if a guy has to watchh it, I think he would like it because it is funny with pretty girls!Movie Review: I give it an A!
Summary: 4 Stars
Wonderfully crafted,witty, and lighthearted Belle Epoque is a movie worth watching!Movie Review: Not my idea of a romantic comedy
Summary: 3 Stars
Let me start by saying I only watched this film because it features Penelope Cruz in one of her earliest roles. I'm not a fan of non-horror European cinema, and maybe that's why my reaction to the film is significantly less enthusiastic than that of other reviewers. I found Belle Epoque somewhat disturbing, actually. Basically, this is the story of an army deserter who sleeps his way through an entire family of sisters - talk about your hand-me-downs - yet it turns out that his relationships aren't the weirdest ones on display. I will say this: when you put a man in a dress and play out a really weird cross-dressing romantic encounter with him, you're going to lose this viewer to a significant degree. This whole film is just really, really weird - almost deviant, even.
The story takes place in 1931 Spain, a country on the verge of discarding its monarchy and becoming a Republic. The politics of the day and age play a definite part in the whole story, and I'm sure my less than spectacular knowledge of Spanish history was a bit of a handicap in terms of digesting everything I saw and heard, but this is really a film about people and not politics. Fernando (Jorge Sanz) is a young deserter who finds shelter and friendship with an older gentleman named Manolo (Fernando Fernan Gomez) - until Manolo's four daughters arrive for an extended visit. Rather than return to Madrid as planned, Fernando decides to hang around a while after getting a look at Clara (Miriam Diaz Aroca), Violeta (Ariadna Gil), Rocio (Maribel Verdu), and Luz (Penelope Cruz). They apparently take a shine to him, as well, as the three oldest sisters manage to seduce him one after another, leaving young Luz increasingly jealous. I certainly don't know what they see in the shiftless fellow; the only thing he has in terms of personality is a vague Robert Downey, Jr., aura about him (that's not a good thing, by the way). He is much more appealing than Rocio's on-again, off-again fiancee Juanito (Gabino Diego), the film's most irritating character by far.
I personally found this whole story the very opposite of romantic. The sexual encounters are all quick and clumsy, and the sisters have no problem sharing their experiences with one another. It becomes a little easier to understand the sisters when their diva of a mother shows up for a visit, though. At that point, the gang's all here - Fernando the cad, the four sisters, the father, the mother, and the mother's lover. It's free love all over the place. Fairly disgusted with the whole lot of them, all I could do was hope that Luz might not follow in the footsteps of her ribald sisters - even though it's hard to wish too many good thoughts for a girl more than willing to claim a man who already knows her three sisters quite intimately.
I guess some viewers can just take this film at face value and have fun with it, but I was really turned off by the morals of these characters - and I daresay that my fellow old-fashioned curmudgeons will share some of my own disquiet over the nature of the entire story. If nothing else, I think it's safe to say that Belle Epoque clearly isn't for everyone.