Torremolinos 73
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: C+
In a new spate of sexually honest and graphic new films,
Pablo Berger’s Almodovar-like Torremolinos 73 is a tamer, comic look at
a man (Javier Camara as Alfredo) who cannot have children, whose wife is feed
up with waiting and who himself has a dead end job of selling
encyclopedias. His boss gives him a
bizarre new option, make sex education films or be fired, since the sales are
not working out. Seeing this as an
interesting way out, he agrees and when his first film is a hit, so his boss
wants him to do a script (baring the title of this film) that is trying to
combines sex and Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal!
Of course, this is a doomed project and the comic results
are the crux of this film. However,
though this might have been funny had it actually happened or is film been shot
and released in 1973, the idea of the picture is lame and writer/director
Berger is too busy imitating Almodovar to begin conjuring Bergman. Even if he had done the film via Fellini, it
is a one-joke intellectual film.
Ultimately, this is for fans of the Almodovar school of filmmaking, if
that.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image was shot on
film, but the PAL transfer in NTSC is problematic and gives the image a
video-like appearance. Detail and color
are also a problem throughout as a result, but it is watchable enough and the
original print is in good shape. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo has no real surrounds, though the film was a Dolby Theatrical
release. Extras include 13 stills,
trailers for “sexy” films of the time this film and a few others from First
Run, text on the cast and crew and a text statement about the film by Berger
himself.
- Nicholas Sheffo
