Spanish Films A - L - Spanish Language Films - LibGuides at Spokane Falls Community College

Fernando, a handsome, young Spanish Civil War soldier deserts the army and befriends a lonely old man in the local village who is a freethinking artist. A romantic dilemma arises when the artist's four beautiful daughters return to their country home and the soldier quickly falls in love with each of them.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103791/

All About My Mother / Todo sobre mi madre (1999)

Genre: Comedy / Drama

Rating: R for strong sexual dialogue, language and some drug content

Length: 101 minutes

Country: Spain

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Actors: Penélope Cruz, Fernando Fermán Gómez

A single mother in Madrid sees her only son die on his 17th birthday as he runs to seek an actress's autograph. She goes to Barcelona to find the lad's father, a transvestite named Lola who does not know he has a child. First she finds her friend, Agrado, also a transvestite; through him she meets Rosa, a young nun bound for El Salvador, and by happenstance, becomes the personal assistant of Huma Rojo, the actress her son admired. She helps Huma manage Nina, the co-star and Huma's lover, and she becomes Rosa's caretaker during a dicey pregnancy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185125/

Alone / Solas (1999)

Genre: Drama

Rating: R for language and sexual content

Length: 101 minutes

Country: Spain

Maria, whose parents live in the country, cannot stand her father's authoritarian ways and moves to the city. She finds a job as a cleaner and tries to survive in a wretched apartment in the shabby part of a big city. She is pregnant, and the fact that her boyfriend has abandoned her does not help matters. When her father goes to the hospital for an operation, her mother comes to stay with her. Her neighbor, an old recluse whose only friend is his dog, begins to come out of his shell and these three lost souls try to give each other the strength to start over.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190798/

And Your Mama Too / Y tu mamá también (2001)

Genre: Drama

Rating: R for strong sexual content involving teens, drug use and language

Length: 105 minutes

Country: Mexico

Actors: Gael García Bernal

Abandoned by their girlfriends for the summer, teenagers Tenoch and Julio meet the older Luisa at a wedding. Trying to be impressive, the friends tell Luisa they are headed on a road trip to a beautiful, secret beach called Boca del Cielo. Intrigued with their story and desperate to escape, Luisa asks if she can join them on their trip. Soon the three are headed out of Mexico City, making their way toward the fictional destination. Along the way, seduction, argument and the contrast of the trio against the harsh realities of the surrounding poverty ensue.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245574/

Bad Education / Mala educación (2004)

Genre: Drama / Thriller

Rating: R for strong sexual content throughout, language and some drug use

Length: 106 minutes

Country: Spain

Director Pedro Almodóvar

Actors: Gael García Bernal

Enrique, a film director, is visited by his childhood friend and lover from Catholic school, Ignacio, who brings Enrique a short story he has written. The story recounts his molestation by their school principal and literature teacher, Father Manolo. As Enrique begins to adapt the story for film, he uncovers a dangerous web of deceit and revenge.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275491/

Before Night Falls / Antes que anochezca (2000)

Genre: Biography Drama

Rating: R for strong sexual content, some language and brief violence

Length: 133 minutes

Country: USA

Actors: Javier Bardem, Sean Penn, Johnny Depp

Notes: Based on the memoir Antes que anochezca by Cuban poet and novelist, Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990)

Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas's life is narrated by him, in an inextricable mix of his memories, dreams, nightmares and pure fiction. He grew up as poor, naked illegitimate child, joined Castro's Cuban revolution and became an intellectual, employed in the public library. After discovering his gay sexuality, he soon shares in the regime's inconsistent persecution. His work and life become dominated by the mix of temptation, fear, betrayal and man-hunting in both senses. Finally he makes it to Manhattan, only to get caught in another trap for which there is only one tragic escape in the end.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247196/

Bolivar I Am / Bolívar soy yo! (2002)

Genre: Comedy / Drama / History

Rating: R for some sexuality and brief language

Length: 93 minutes

Country: Colombia

An actor gets so involved playing the role of Simón Bolívar in a Colombian soap opera that he believes himself to be the Liberator.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0257282/

Broken Embraces/Los abrazos rotos

Genre: Drama, Suspense/Thriller

Running Time: 128 min.

MPAA Rating: R

Harry Caine, a blind writer, reaches this moment in time when he has to heal his wounds from 14 years back. He was then still known by his real name, Mateo Blanco, and directing his last movie."--IMDb.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0913425/

Broken Silence / Silencio roto (2001)

Genre: Drama

Length: 110 minutes

Country: Spain

Winter, 1944. Lucía at 21 returns to her small village in the mountains. She again meets Manuel, a young iron-smith who helps "those in the mountain", the "maquis", the anti-Franco resistance. Lucía is attracted to Manual, because of his smile and the bravery of those men who continue fighting for their ideas, even at the cost of their own lives. When Manuel is pursued (by Franco's Civil Guard) he flees to the mountain and Lucía discovers the reality of political repression, the silence, the horror and fear.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275681/

Burnt Money / Plata quemada (2000)

Genre: Action / Drama / Thriller / Crime / Romance

Length: 125 minutes

Country: Spain / France / Argentina / Uruguay

Actors: Eduardo Noriega, Héctor Alterio, Leticia Brédice

Notes: Based on the true story of the legendary crime spree that took place in Argentina / Uruguay in 1965

Angel and Sam are two young, sexy and inseparable killers are known as "los mellizos" (“the twins”) because of their resemblance. These two gay lovers turn to crime, bank robbery and murder, holding Argentina and Uruguay in suspense as they lead the authorities on a two-month-long manhunt.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0227277/

Butterfly / La lengua de las mariposas (1999)

Genre: Drama

Rating: R for a strong sex scene

Length: 96 minutes

Country: Spain

Actors: Fernando Fermán Gómez

For Moncho, it's an idyllic year: he starts school, he has a wonderful teacher, he makes a friend in Roque, he begins to figure out some of the mysteries of Eros, and he makes a trip with his older brother’s band. But it's also the year that the Spanish Republic comes under fire from Fascist rebels. Moncho's father is a Republican as is the aging teacher, Don Gregorio. As sides are drawn and power falls clearly to one side, the forces of fear, violence, and betrayal alter profoundly what should be the pleasure of coming of age.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0188030/

Captain Pantoja and the Special Services / Pantaleón y las visitadoras (2000)

Genre: Comedy / Drama

Rating: R for strong sexuality, nudity and language

Length: 119 minutes

Country: Peru / Spain

Notes: Based on the novel by Mario Vargas Llosa

A dedicated Peruvian army captain (and devoted husband) is chosen to run a top-secret military operation—a special service of 'visitors' to satisfy the sexual needs of the soldiers posted on remote jungle outposts. In a short time has his 'unit' running smoothly, but things get complicated when he starts to feel tempted by one of his “subordinates.”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190611/

Captive / Cautiva (2003)

Genre: Drama

Length: 115 minutes

Country: Argentina

Cristina's life is thrown into turmoil when she is suddenly escorted from her strict Catholic school in Buenos Aires and told that she is really Sofía Lombardi, the daughter of activists who disappeared in the '70s. Questioning everything she once thought true, Cristina embarks on a journey to find her true identity. Meeting others like herself, the young girl soon discovers the real-life horrors of Argentina's relatively recent past and the nightmare that claimed tens of thousands of lives during the country's "dirty war."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362496/

Choking Man (2008)

Call Number: SFCC Circulating DVD: CHOKING

ISBN: B0018CWEWG

The social anxiety of a morbidly shy Ecuadorian dishwasher working in a Queens diner provides the psychological engine that powers this blend of drama and magical realism.

Genre: Drama

Rating: Not rated

Length: 85 minutes

Country: USA

Chronicles / Crónicas (2004)

Genre: Crime / Drama / Thriller

Rating: R for violence, a scene of sexuality and language

Length: 108 minutes

Country: Mexico / Ecuador

When the star of a sensationalistic Miami news show travels to the Ecuadorian coastal village of Babahoyo to cover the story of a serial killer who hunts children, his personal ambition gets out of hand, and his pursuit of a moment of glory carries tragic consequences.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382621/

City of No Limits / En la ciudad sin límites (2002)

Genre: Drama

Length: 125 minutes

Country: Spain

Actors: Fernando Fermán Gómez, Leticia Brédice

Max, a former titan of Spanish industry now living in Paris, has become terminally ill. As his family gathers around him, he talks incessantly about a plot against an old acquaintance of his. What seems in the beginning mere delusions of an old man losing his mind begins to show traces of some sort of real 'secret' that is troubling Max's last days. Victor decides to take him seriously and investigate his story, to try to help his father to find that something (maybe just peace) he is searching for.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311072/

Compassionate Sex / Sexo por compasión (2000)

Genre: Drama

Length: 109 minutes

Country: Spain / Mexico

Dolores is a mature and kind woman whose husband abandons her because he can’t stand her generosity. Desperate to get her husband back, she decides to devote her life to works of charity. She decides that one of her charitable acts is to go to bed with all the other men of the town. Dolores, now known as "Lolita," becomes so famous that all men seek out her help now. It is through her compassionate sex that she brings back the color and the happiness to a town that was immersed in sadness.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208675/

Crane World / Mundo grúa (1999)

Genre: Comedy / Drama

Length: 90 minutes

Country: Argentina

Rulo is a 50-year-old ex-bass player from a famous 1970's rock group who now works as a crane operator. When a new laborer arrives on the scene and takes his job, Rulo is forced to leave Buenos Aires as well as his new love, Adriana, and his son Claudio, who hopes to follow in his father's footsteps by forming a band of his own.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213905/

Crime of Padre Amaro / El crimen del padre Amaro (2002)

Genre: Drama / Romance

Rating: R for sexuality, language and some disturbing images

Length: 118 minutes

Country: Mexico

Actors: Gael García Bernal

Recently ordained a priest, 24-year-old Father Amaro is sent to a small parish church in Los Reyes, Mexico to assist the aging Father Benito in his daily work. Upon arriving in Los Reyes, the ambitious Father Amaro meets Amelia, a beautiful 16-year-old girl whose religious devotion soon becomes helplessly entangles in a growing attraction to the new priest. Amaro soon discovers that corruption and the Church are old acquaintances in Los Reyes. Father Benito has been receiving financial help from the region's drug lord for the construction of a new health clinic. As things become increasingly more complicated in the small community, the walls around Father Amaro begin to crumble. Torn between the divine and the carnal, the righteous and the unjust, Father Amaro must summon his strength to choose which life he will lead.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0313196/

Dark Side of the Heart, The / El lado oscuro del corazón (1992)

Genre: Comedy / Romance / Drama

Rating: R

Length: 127 minutes

Country: Argentina / Canada

Director: Eliseo Subiela

Oliveiro is an idealistic young poet who discovers in a high-class prostitute the very thing he is looking for in a woman—the ability to levitate. Soon he becomes obsessed with finding a way to continue their encounters despite her exorbitant fee. Will this turn out to be the ideal love he has been looking for?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104662/

Darkbluealmostblack / Azuloscurocasinegro (2006)

Genre: Drama

Length: 105 minutes

Country: Spain

When his father suffers a debilitating stroke, Jorge is forced to put his life and career on hold. He takes over his father’s janitorial position, cares for his father and studies at night. He finds himself in an awkward position when his convict brother asks him to impregnate his girlfriend who wants a baby, and Jorge finds himself falling for her. To further complicate matters, Jorge’s childhood love returns to his life wanting the same.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452971/

Days of Santiago / Días de Santiago (2004)

Genre: Drama

Length: 83 minutes

Country: Peru

Notes: A re-contextualizing of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver

Santiago is a 23-year-old Peruvian Navy veteran returning to the city of Lima; sincere, considerate, deserving, undereducated, desperate and paranoid. He’s fought and killed in wars against Ecuador, against terrorists and drug-traffickers. These are horrific conflicts involving real people, peasants: men, women and children. Now he's fighting for a peaceful life, but his discharge pay isn’t enough to buy a fridge, he can’t get the qualifications he needs, he can’t get advice. His only friends are Navy vets, a generation exploited and abandoned; one takes his own life and the rest turn to crime. But Santiago can’t give up hope of normality. Taxi driving becomes his lifeline.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397405

Spanish Film Descriptions A - L (cont.)

Devil’s Backbone, The / El espinazo del diablo (2001)

Genre: Drama / Crime / Mystery / Fantasy / Horror

Rating: R for violence, language, and some sexuality

Length: 106 minutes

Country: Spain

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Actors: Eduardo Noriega, Federico Lippi

An orphaned ten-year-old boy named Carlos is left in an orphanage in the middle of nowhere during Spain’s civil war. Carlos never feels completely comfortable in his new environment. First, there is the orphanage's nasty caretaker, Jacinto, who reacts violently when anyone is caught looking around a particular storage room with a deep well. Secondly there's the un-exploded bomb that dominates the orphanage's courtyard, still ticking away. Then there is the presence of a ghost, one of the former occupants of the orphanage named Santi. Not long after Carlos' arrival, Santi latches onto Carlos, badgering him incessantly at night and gloomily intoning, "Many of you will die." With the orphanage left defenseless and the swift progression of Franco's troops, the ghost's prediction seems sure to come true. Nevertheless, with every step of the plot, it becomes apparent that the ghost's predictions as to who (or what) will die, the real source of danger and even the definition of death itself may be more ambiguous than first thought.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256009/

Devil’s Miner, The (2005)

Genre: Documentary

Length: 82 minutes

Country: USA

Two brothers, ages 14 and 12, work deep inside the ancient silver mines of Cerro Rico, Bolivia. They are being raised without a father, and must work the dangerous mines to support their family and to pay for supplies vital to their education. In spite of the daily hazards and the long hours they must work inside the mine, they dream of saving enough money for an education that will lead to a better life.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441001/

Dust to Dust / Por la libre (2000)

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R for language, some sexuality and drug use

Length: 96 minutes

Country: Mexico

During a family dinner in honor of his birthday, patriarch Rodrigo Carnicero drops dead of a heart attack. Among the witnesses are his devoted daughter Pureza and his beloved grandchildren Rocco and Rodrigo. Rocco and Rodrigo are cousins, though completely different; while Rocco is laid-back and hippie-ish, Rodrigo is dour and conservative. One thing Rocco and Rodrigo have in common, however, is their loyalty to their departed grandfather, with whom they enjoyed a closer relationship than with either of their self-absorbed fathers. After Don Rodrigo's death, Rocco and Rodrigo take off in the vintage car left to Rodrigo by his grandfather to dispose of the don's ashes in the manner requested in his will. When they arrive at the beach where their grandfather is to be scattered, Rocco and Rodrigo lodge at a hotel run by Perla and her daughter Maria. Chaos soon results when the urn is lost, Rocco hooks up with Maria for his initiation into sex, and the cousins discover that Perla once enjoyed intimate relations with their beloved grandfather.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262698/

Elsa & Fred (2005)

Genre: Comedy / Drama / Romance

Rating: PG for some mild thematic elements and language

Length: 108 minutes

Country: Argentina / Spain

Actors: Federico Lippi

Elsa & Fred is a story about two people who, at the end of the road, discover that it’s never too late to love-- or dream. Elsa is 82 years-old, while Alfredo is a bit younger than her. After losing his wife, Alfredo feels disturbed and confused, so his daughter suggests it would be best if he moved into a smaller apartment. There he’ll meet Elsa. From that moment on, everything changes. Elsa bursts into his life like a whirlwind, determined to teach him that the time he has left to live -- be it more or less -- is precious and that he should enjoy it as he pleases.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0453047/

First Night, The / La primera noche (2006)

Genre: Drama

Length: 94 minutes

Country: Colombia

In the jungles of Colombia, brother is pitted against brother as the country's devastating civil war catches up with their remote village, and the men are forced to take sides. Toño dons the uniform of the army, while his brother Wilson joins the rebels. Meanwhile, the woman they both love flees the massacre that's taken place in their village for the relative safety of Bogotá.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264946/

Flower of My Secret, The / La flor de mi secreto (1995)

Genre: Drama

Rating: R for language and brief sexuality

Length: 103 minutes

Country: Spain

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Leo writes romance novels with great success – but with a loveless marriage, she finds herself fresh out of inspiration. Angel is a tough journalist with an iron will and a heart of gold. When their paths cross, they discover something neither had expected – a real-life love affair.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113083/

Gimme Power / Todo el poder (1999)

Genre: Comedy / Drama

Rating: R for language and some violence

Length: 102 minutes

Country: Mexico

Gabriel is a filmmaker in Mexico City, where he is a victim of crime and violence sometimes even three times a day. This is a black comedy that shows the extreme situation Mexico City is leaving as far as crime is concerned, and the tension the city and its inhabitants live day after day.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208181/

Girl of Your Dreams, The / La niña de tus ojos (1998)

Genre: Comedy / drama

Rating: R for sexual content and language

Length: 121 minutes

Country: Spain

Actors: Penelope Cruz

It’s the 1940’s, and a small company of actors go from Franco’s Spain to Hitler’s Germany in order to work on a musical that will be co-produced between the two fascist countries. It doesn’t take long before the ideological differences between the German’s and the Spaniards begins to emerge…

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158030/

Grandfather / El abuelo (1998)

Genre: Drama

Rating: PG for thematic elements and language

Length: 151 minutes

Country: Spain

Actors: Fernando Fermán Gómez

An elderly man returns to Spain after visiting the US during the Gold Rush and losing his fortune. His son has died leaving two daughters, and the son has left a note stating that one of the two is a bastard child. The grandfather hopes to find out which is his true granddaughter.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0176415/

Headless Woman, The / La mujer sin cabeza (2008)

Genre: Drama / Mystery / Thriller

Length: 87 minutes

Country: Argentina

Director: Lucrecia Martel

A bourgeois woman is driving alone on a dirt road when she becomes distracted and runs over something. In the days following this jarring incident, she becomes dazed and emotionally disconnected from the people and events in her life. She becomes obsessed with the possibility that she may have killed someone. The police confirm that there were no accidents reported in the area and everything returns to normal. That is until a gruesome discovery is made.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1221141/

Holy Girl, The / La niña santa (2004)

Genre: Drama

Rating: R for some sexual content and brief nudity

Length: 106 minutes

Country: Argentina / Italy / Netherlands / Spain

Director: Lucrecia Martel

ENT physicians gather at a provincial hotel in Salta. The hotel owner, Helena, is subdued, brittle, avoiding the calls of her ex-husband's pregnant wife. Family dysfunction seems everywhere. Helena's daughter, Amalia, about 14, discusses vocations in a Catholic girls group. Their teen imaginations conflate the erotic, the religious, and the lurid. Amalia notices Dr. Jano, and he notices her. She decides to make him her vocation, she follows him, he rubs against her in a public crowd, he's appalled at his actions. Meanwhile, Helena believes Jano is attracted to her even though he's married. Longing, guilt, scandal, and teen sensuality are set to collide.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0300270/

How Much Farther / Qué tan lejos (2006)

Genre: Drama

Length: 92 minutes

Country: Ecuador

Esperanza and Tristeza are two young adventurers who set out on a bus trip through the mountains and coasts of Ecuador. When their bus breaks down, they decide to continue on their own and it is then that their real journey begins. Everyone they meet along the way will make them discover a different facet of themselves and the true meaning of love.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0951297/

If They Tell You I Fell / Si te dicen que caí (1989)

Genre: Drama

Length: 120 minutes

Country: Spain

Director: Vicente Aranda

Actors: Victoria Abril, Antonio Banderas

In the post Spanish civil war years, Catalan kids would sit in circles among the ruins and tell stories, known as "aventis" (the film's original title in Catalan, its original language). These tales mix war stories, local gossip, comic book characters, fantasy and real events. The "aventis" told in this film are told in flashback. In the mid 80s, 45 or so years after the age of the "aventis," a doctor and a nurse-nun (who grew up together, and now are co-workers in a hospital) identify the corpse of one of the main characters of the "aventis" of their childhood and adolescence. Besides the interesting flashbacks - a chronicle of the Civil War in a "typical" Barcelona microcosm itself, the discovery of this body (belonging to someone long presumed dead) leads to other surprises and unresolved doubts, several decades later.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098324/

Innocent Voices / Voces inocentes (2004)

Genre: Drama / War

Rating: R for disturbing violence and some language

Length: 120 minutes

Country: Mexico

Based on the true story of a now-grown Oscar Torres, this moving film follows the drama of Chava, who becomes the man of the house at 11 when his father abandons the family. Now, trapped in the middle of a civil war in El Salvador during the 1980’s, he must choose between enlisting in the Salvadoran army or joining up with a band of guerrillas.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387914/

Intact / Intacto (2001)

Genre: Thriller / Drama

Rating: R for language, some violence and brief nudity

Length: 108 minutes

Country: Spain

An enigmatic tale of four people whose lives are intertwined by destiny are subject to the laws of fate. They discover that luck is something they cannot afford to be without as they gamble with the highest stakes possible in a deadly game from which only one of them will emerge intact. There is Tomas, a young thief and the sole survivor of a horrific plane crash; Federico, who survived a massive earthquake and discovered he has the power to rob those around him of their good fortune with a touch; Sam, a casino owner who is the ultimate survivor after losing everything but his own life in the terrible conflagration that enveloped Europe during the Second World War; and Sara, a policewoman who walked away from a car crash that killed her family and becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth behind a clandestine gambling ring where death and luck intermingle.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0220580/

Invisible Children, The / Los niños invisibles (2001)

Genre: Comedy

Length: 90 minutes

Country: Colombia

The film is set in the 1930's or 40's in a small Colombian town and tells the story of three children who go through all sorts of adventures and misadventures in order to become invisible. The protagonist's motivation is the secret love he has for his neighbor, a very beautiful but unkind little girl (only she is also secretly in love with him).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264944/

Last Images of a Shipwreck / Ultimas imágenes del naufragio (1989)

Genre: Drama

Length: 131 minutes

Country: Argentina / Spain

Director: Eliseo Subiela

Roberto is a man whose inner life has gone dead. He has no interest in his job (selling life insurance) or his family. About the only thing that interests him is his writing, but he currently has writer's block. When he sees a lovely young woman on the verge of throwing herself in front of a train, he can't help himself: he has to stop her. It turns out that the woman, Estela, is only slightly addled: she is a prostitute who uses this rather dramatic technique to pick up men. Interested in her as a character for his novel, he accompanies her home. At one point, the ghosts of her dead relatives get on the bus they are traveling on, but she refuses to speak to them so as to avoid having to speak about her father. Once Roberto gets to her home, he finds it to be a hot-bed of odd characters. Attracted by them to participate in life once more, even if that life is very peculiar, he visits them more and more frequently, and is fired from his job and abandons his wife. Estela has a very personal relationship with Jesus, and seeks his advice on how to get Roberto to notice her as a woman.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098732/

Law of Desire, The / La ley del deseo (1987)

Genre: Comedy / Drama / Romance

Length: 102 minutes

Country: Spain

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Actors: Antonio Banderas, Carmen Maura

Pablo and Tina have complicated sexual lives. Pablo writes and directs plays and films; he's gay and deeply in love with Juan, a young man who won't reply to Pablo's affection or letters. Pablo's sibling Tina is a transsexual, angry at men, raising Ada, and trying to make it as an actress. Pablo takes up with Antonio, a youth who becomes jealous of Pablo's love for Juan. Antonio seeks out Juan, and violence leads to Pablo's grief and a temporary loss of memory. When memory returns, he learns that Antonio has taken up with Tina. In horror, he hurries to Tina's rescue and must face Antonio and his desire.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093412/

Life According to Muriel / La vida según Muriel (1997)

Genre: Drama

Rating: PG-13

Length: 98 minutes

Country: Argentina

Director: Eduardo Milewicz

Muriel and her mother leave their home for good and a freak occurrence leaves them stranded in the country. They beg a woman to let them stay and a shaky friendship develops between the two families. Despite the great differences in their approach to life, they work at transforming disappointments and misfortunes into personal victories.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161061/

Like Water for Chocolate / Como agua para chocolate (1992)

Genre: Drama / Romance / Fantasy

Rating: R for nudity and suggested sex

Length: 113 minutes

Country: Mexico

Notes: Adaptation of the novel by Laura Esquivel

Tita is the youngest of three daughters in a traditional Mexican family. Bound by tradition to remain unmarried while caring for her aging mother, Tita nevertheless falls in love with a handsome young man named Pedro. Pedro returns her affection, but he cannot overcome Mama Elena’s disapproval, and decides to marry Tita's elder sister to be nearer to Tita. The lovestruck young woman is brutally disappointed, and her sadness has such force that it infects her cooking: all who eat it her feel her heartbreak with the same intensity. This newly discovered power continues to manifest itself after the wedding, as Tita and Pedro, overcome by their denied love, embark on a secret affair.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103994/

Lost Embrace / Abrazo partido, El (2004)

Genre: Comedy

Length: 100 minutes

Country: Argentina

Director: Daniel Burman

This is Ariel's world: the small, slightly seedy shopping center in downtown Buenos Aires, where the Italian shopkeepers scream all day, the Koreans sell feng-shui and old Osvaldo sells nothing. Where Ariel's mother runs a lingerie shop and his brother deals in import-export. It's a comfortable little world, in spite of an undercurrent of malaise and uncertainty. Many young people are searching for their immigrant roots to obtain a coveted foreign passport, the key to a world full of promise. Ariel, however, wants more than a passport from Poland, where his grandparents fled to escape the Holocaust. He wants to understand. Why his father left his family shortly after his birth to fight a war in Israel. Why he never returned. And why this seems to leave his mother and brother indifferent...But the truth changes. And when Ariel's father returns, he brings with him new truths, a new story and, ultimately, a long-overdue embrace--one that had been lost for so long.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366137/

Love Affair / Ya no los hacen como antes (2003)

Genre: Comedy

Length: 90 minutes

Country: Mexico

Recently widowed, Benito faces the jealousy of his daughters when, reunited by an old ford car, he finds a new love and new meaning for his life.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368452/

Love’s a Bitch / Amores perros (2000)

Genre: Drama / Thriller

Rating: R for violence/gore, language and sexuality

Length: 153 minutes

Country: Mexico

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Actors: Gael García Bernal

Three different people are catapulted into dramatic and unforseen circumstances in the wake of a terrible car crash: a young punk stumbles into the sinister underground world of dog fighting; an injured supermodel's designer pooch disappears into the apartment's floorboards; and an ex-radical turned hit man rescues a Rotweiler with a gunshot wound.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245712/

Lovers of the Arctic Circle / Amantes del círculo polar (1998)

Genre: Drama / Romance

Rating: R for sexuality and brief language

Length: 112 minutes

Country: Spain / France

Director: Julio Medem

Otto and Ana are children when they meet each other. Their names are palindromes. They meet by chance, people are related by chance. A story of circular lives, with circular names, and a circular place where the day never ends in the midnight sun.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133363/

Güeros

A group of slackers embark on a journey in order to pay their final respects to their childhood idol, but the trip soon becomes a voyage of self-discovery.

Living is easy with eyes closed / Vivir es facil con los ojos cerrados (DVD)
Call Number: SFCC Circulating DVD: LIVING IS EASY

ISBN: B00S8M03WW

Spain, 1966: Antonio is a teacher and a Beatles fan, facets he combines by getting his pupils to recite the lyrics from Help in English class. When he learns that his idol John Lennon is making a film in Almeria, he resolves to meet him. On the journey he picks up two young runaways: Bethlehem, a pregnant girl fleeing a convent, and Juanjo, a boy escaping a dictatorial father.

Spanish Language Films: Spanish Films A - L

Spanish Films Titles and Descriptions A - L

Spanish Film Descriptions A - L (cont.)