Watch La spagnola For Free

Best movie of this year hands down!

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This delightful Australian film came out of nowhere, as I doubt it was ever was shown commercially in this country, except maybe in some markets, but never in the N.Y. area, as far as I'm concerned. It is a film that holds one's attention because of what Steve Jacobs, its director, working on a screen play by Anna Maria Monticelli, has achieved. He deserves better than the obscurity this film seems to have gained. Had it not been for HBO Latino, we would have missed this funny Australian movie.Perhaps most viewers get confused with this movie trying to be a lot of different styles, not settling into being just a comedy, or a black one, at that. There are lots of situations in the film that immigrants all over the world could easily identify with. There is a 'melange' of languages enough to confuse the most brilliant linguists, but in a funny kind of way. It's easy to follow what one sees on the screen.The two principal actresses, Lola Marceli, and Alice Ansara, make this film enjoyable. Both women bring a fire to whatever they do in line with what one's expectations. Lola Marceli is a gorgeous creature who smolders the screen with the heat she projects. Ms. Ansara, as the long suffering daughter, is quite good herself. The best thing in the film is Aunt Manola's version of the ritual of preparing the cucumber salad. Lourdes Bartolome is nothing less than genial as her facial expressions are seen in close ups. Not only that, but Aunt Manola adheres to the most hygienic ways of preparing food!Watch this movie with an open mind and it will reward the viewer.

What was up the previous reviewers butt, I dont know? Pure hate if you ask me. I mean, how could anyone destroy such a delightful and interestingly shot film so thoroughly as to make this reader doubt it was the same film at all?This film was refreshing, happy, sad, completely entertaining if you want to see things done freshly with a camera and acting that takes you away into the movie itself. Reaching deep emotions quickly and coming up for air just as fast for the next scene, many times throughout, this cast held me in awe. I reccomend this film to anyone who simply enjoys film. Period.And if youre from some difficult childhood issues, you might even relate to the subject matter.Oh, and take any uncomfortable objects out of your bum before viewing, please, or you'll end up sounding like that other reviewer, no matter the film.

The plot is tenuous, the action is repetitive, the cinematography is gawky industrial, the obsession with cars is cute, the multiple languages is interesting, the performances are adequate, the overall effect is "if you are tired watching Hollywood stuff you may want to check it out but then maybe not, just curl up in bed with a good book".And if you are male, you may want to see it just for the blatant pleasure of ogling Lola Marceli in glorious 35 mm color.

Of the many AFI awards "La Spagnola" was nominated for (don't blame the institute; it can't be easy coming up with candidates - although Alice Ansara, who played Lucia, DID deserve her nomination for best actress; she even deserved to win, which she didn't), the most puzzling was for original screenplay. This is an ORIGINAL screenplay? There isn't a novel or comic book lurking in the background to excuse the arbitrary plot developments, or to explain the fact that someone took an interest in this material in the first place...? Oh dear.This is a miserable, squalid movie about miserable squalid characters - even the minor characters, even those who only get one scene, even those who only get one scene and don't even TALK - and the story is one damned miserable squalid thing after another. The way it ends is revealing. (Don't worry: I won't give anything away.) We just sort of fade out, as we watch what looks like the BEGINNINGS of a resolution ... all very honest not to suggest that the tensions can be resolved in a single, melodramatic confrontation, to suggest that the process might well take years, but the thing is, this only looks like even the beginning of the end BECAUSE we fade out. We could have faded out at any other point and the result would have been the same. Unrelated things happen in sequence, like the ticks of a metronome, with about as much purpose or genuine sense of rhythm. And we sense, despite what the fade out seems to be trying to imply, that the metronome will continue to tick on at the same rate until everyone ultimately dies. (It won't be before time when they do.)Tiny scenes have been added for no reason other than to make the film all the more vile and mean-spirited. Lucia (the daughter) is an English/Italian/Spanish interpreter for the local doctor. There's no doubt she's exploited dreadfully. At first the doctor sees no reason to pay her at all; after a while, he offers a token payment of "a few shillings" a week. (Adjusting for inflation this still isn't much.) The doctor comes across as not a bad man, but a bit clueless and insensitive - when he learns that a patient speaks what appears to be some Slavic tongue, he asks Lucia to try talking to him in Italian, but slowly.(Spoiler in this paragraph - I suppose.) Then, one day, the doctor asks the fourteen-year old Lucia to stay behind for a bit, gets her to sit on his knee. Obviously he's coming on to her. He starts talking about how much she reminds him of his wife. "You mean the one who hung herself on the jacaranda?" asks Lucia. This scene lasts just seconds. It has no repercussions. Its sole purpose is to let us know that the doctor, who has no bearing on the main story in any event, is a lecherous old toad with a taste for barely pubescent girls, who drove his wife to suicide. Did it even occur to the writer or the director that the film might have actually been richer if they'd stopped laying on the misanthropic spite with a trowel, for just a moment? If the doctor's exploitation of Lucia had been the unquestioning prejudice of a basically good man? Evidently not.The SECOND most puzzling nomination, by the way, was for the cinematography. The cinematography makes me suspicious. Imagine a fantasy movie that's set in a mediaevel European wood but was in fact shot, by an admittedly skilled cameraman, in a municipal park - there's nothing in particular to give the game away, but you can sense that most of the creative effort has gone towards hiding something. The shots in "La Spagnola" are all very nicely focused and lit and framed, but they don't inspire confidence.