Laura del Sol

Gradually picking up dramatic steam as it moves through its 2 1/2 hour running time, this gangster film is loosely based on the career of one of Naples’ most sadistic crime bosses, Raffaele Cutolo. Here, the mobster (played by Ben Gazzara) is simply called “The Professor” and is first introduced in prison where he landed after murdering a stranger who was flirting with his sister. From prison he begins to move up the Camorra ladder when he recruits inmates to join him in bringing down the leading crime boss and has his sister pay off their families in return. Without ever leaving prison “The Professor” succeeds in replacing the ruling “don” but far from resting on his laurels he starts to wipe out his enemies and anyone whose loyalty might be in question. Still hampered by his incarceration, he finally escapes and joins forces with the Cosa Nostra and even begins to put major politicians in his pocket. It seems like nothing can stop him until a lone and much-benighted police chief (Leo Gullotta) enters the picture.
Eleanor Mannikka
New York TimesRead More »

The spirit, hopes, and failures of a troupe of itinerant performers in the 1950s create a poignant, humorous leitmotif in this drama by Fernando Fernan-Gomez. The story of the wandering players is told in flashbacks, as Carlos Galvan (Jose M. Sacristan) reminisces about the good times while under therapy with a psychiatrist in a senior citizens’ home. Carlos and his lover Juanita (Laura del Sol), his teenage son, his father, and a few other actors try to eke out a living by putting on shows in small towns and villages. No one has very much money, but life is lived to the hilt, and Carlos himself has some pretty tall tales.Read More »

Quote:
In an early episode in Carmen, Carlos Saura’s second dance film with renowned flamenco artist Antonio Gades (in what would inevitably prove to be the second film of their collaborative Flamenco trilogy), a group of musicians rehearse at a large, open dance studio within earshot of the choreographer, Antonio (Gades) as he struggles to find the proper tempo suitable to adapting the Seguedilla from Bizet’s opera for a flamenco performance. Reinterpreting the operatic work from a waltzy, 3/4 timed vocal piece to a sprightly, improvisational bulería, the musicians perform their rendition to the receptive Antonio who, along with his studio partner – and perhaps, erstwhile paramour – Cristina (Cristina Hoyos), begin to re-envision Carmen, not as a French composer’s projection of the fiery gypsy seductress – and more broadly, a foreigner’s stereotypical notions of Spanish culture – but rather, as an indigenous adaptation of Prosper Mérimée’s novel, disconnected from the now iconic flourishes of Bizet’s opera. Read More »

The spirit, hopes, and failures of a troupe of itinerant performers in the 1950s create a poignant, humorous leitmotif in this drama by Fernando Fernan-Gomez. The story of the wandering players is told in flashbacks, as Carlos Galvan (Jose M. Sacristan) reminisces about the good times while under therapy with a psychiatrist in a senior citizens’ home. Carlos and his lover Juanita (Laura del Sol), his teenage son, his father, and a few other actors try to eke out a living by putting on shows in small towns and villages. No one has very much money, but life is lived to the hilt, and Carlos himself has some pretty tall tales.Read More »