These are the premieres that hit the theaters this March 8:
By Salvador Llopart
It is said that the greatness of the universe fits in a grain of sand. In the same way, it can be said that the infinite universe of emotions that is created between a mother and a daughter is contained in Little Loves, by Celia Rico, an expert director in exploring that unique maternal and filial universe.
As in his previous Journey to a Mother’s Room (2018), the greatness of the family reunion/meeting here lies in the epic of small gestures, which accumulate to create meaning in their everyday simplicity.
Without forcing the drama, practicing a style that we could define as transparent, the director extracts gold – emotional gold – from an anecdote as trivial as that of a mother who suffers a domestic accident and requires her daughter to take care of her during a summer. If in the previous Trip to the Room…, Rico focused on the mother’s relationship with the young daughter who wants to leave the nest, here he jumps in time and tells us about the daughter’s return, no longer so young. , to that long abandoned nest.
Return of a bittersweet flavor, forced by circumstances. Where Teresa, played with subtle emotion by María Vázquez, reunites with her mother. And her mother is none other than Adriana Ozores, an immense actress, a true actress, increasingly precise in her stark and harsh humanity. A mother who has always demanded too much of her daughter; like Teresa herself, perhaps, now that adolescence is far behind.
But let’s not fool ourselves. We are not facing a story of epiphany and catharsis, nor is there more intrigue here than the intrigue of everyday life. Cinema of loneliness rather than joy, where small events – the chance discovery of a Neolithic tooth, the nostalgic conversation with a childhood friend, a beer shared with new friends, twenty years younger – are filled with multiple meanings.
The drama does not advance; Rather, it passes peacefully like a river, crawling until it reaches the ocean of daily tedium. If one rushes, one can tell a story that speaks of spiritual failure. There is something of that, but Little Loves also speaks of the redemption that exists in the necessary strength to face, each morning, a new day.
By Jordi Batlle Caminal
Last week we greeted the remarkable Dream scenario, where the character played by Nicolas Cage appeared, inexplicably, in the dreams of others. An anomalous phenomenon also happens to the protagonist of Vincent Must Die, another ordinary creature.
In the offices where he works he is violently attacked twice, the first by an intern, the second by a colleague and friend. The reasons? None, although the intern’s behavior could respond to an excessive reaction to a joke. But things don’t end there, because the unreasonable attacks on the protagonist will multiply everywhere: on the stairs of his house, on the streets, in establishments, etc. If Dream scenario proposed a metaphor for the widespread culture of cancellation today, Vincent Must Die would be an exploration of the irrational, senseless violence (if any violence makes sense) of the society of our time.
Its ingenious premise, of a purely fantastic order, director Stéphan Castang and screenwriter Mathieu Naert, both debutants in the field of feature films, have placed it in the classic mold of zombie epics: the protagonist must survive in perpetual flight from a legion not of the living dead, but of citizens who go crazy just by seeing his face. This generic mold inevitably leads us to apocalyptic images (chaos on the road, an iconic scene worthy of George A. Romero or The Walking Dead) and a rather sarcastic nihilism that does not forget that we live in a pandemic era.
The meeting of our unfortunate hero and the girl with whom he will live a very peculiar love story is funny, because we know that if she looks into his eyes, if she sees his face, she will break her heart. Some situations may be redundant. and the footage is undoubtedly excessive, but Vincent Must Die is an attractive example of genre cinema, inspired and recommended.
Por Philipp Engel
A story with Hitchcockian overtones that puts an airplane pilot played by comedian Guillermo Francella in trouble, with production by Juan José Campanella, who already directed him in the Oscar-winning The Secret in Their Eyes.
Conventional, but efficient and gently humorous, it fulfills its mission by putting us in the shoes of the common man who falls into the trap of his own vital imprudence, the mistakes that can end his career: the crack through which corruption ends up creeping in. .
By S. Llopart
The time has come for change so that everything remains the same. The first Kung Fu Panda dates back to 2008. The third installment, that terrible more of the same, arrived in 2016, eight years ago. Now the refoundation is proposed: a restart with a charming and dangerous vixen as the protagonist. In this time the drawing has improved and the story, in turn, works again. At least it tells something. Especially in its second section, when the characters reveal their cards. The adventure continues, then, and the little ones will enjoy it.
Por P. Engel
The popular comedian José Mota, who already surprised with his role in Chavalas, stars in and produces what could have been a Spanish-style This is Spinal Tap (1984). But Mota is not Christopher Guest, and this comedy about the reunion of a heavy group years after their glory days makes good, in other words, Isi/Disi: Love to the Beast and its unnecessary sequel. Crude humor, embarrassing incidents and Jorge Sanz playing a character so based on the shame of others that it is a bit embarrassing to watch.
By S. Llopart
One cannot speak objectively about this film of wild music and cartoons. What matters is the passion for jazz, like the one felt by the protagonist, Miyamoto Dai, a young man who leaves everything to play. Like jazz itself, the film speaks more about feeling than reason. The drawing explodes into a thousand pieces as the protagonist’s group’s adventures progress. As the soundtrack explodes, wonderful, growing and growing like the film itself, an atypical sample of Japanese anime. How big is Blue Giant!
By S. Llopart
The soundtrack is pitiful. The nightclub, where much of the (in)action takes place, is even worse. There is no charm, neither in the people who fill the place nor in the way they dance nor in their conversations. It is about a young man who believes he is called to something, or by something, and the woman who spends that empty time, more than twenty years in limbo, next to him. And although it is based on a story by Henry James that talks about life postponed, that wait seems eternal when you want it to be tomorrow and, as in this film, it is always yesterday.