En brazos de la mujer madura (1997)

Andrés, nearly 16 in July of 1936, looks for love and fulfillment in Barcelona, during and just after Spain's civil war. His Catholic school closes at war's outbreak; his mother is in western Spain. To cross to her, he joins a Republican battalion. He has a morning with a countess, is sent by his commanding officer to the officer's house in Barcelona where he's attracted to the man's daughter, and ends up as a black marketeer. In 1940, he's reunited with his mother, who has, as he says, "won the war." In Barcelona he lives in comfort with her, dislikes her politics and boyfriend, and pursues medical studies and the arms of three older women. Can a man have more than one homeland?



This 1997 Spanish production is the second screen adaptation of Stephen Vzinczey's novel "In Praise of Older Women." I didn't see the first one, but it would be difficult to top this one. The location of this adaptation has been changed to from World War II Hungary to Spain during and immediately after the Civil War. The young boy and main character, as portrayed by Juan Diego Botto (still one of Spain's most promising young actors), seeks to find his mother amidst the turmoil, and discovers the opposite sex on the way. Mature women, Faye Dunaway and Joanna Pacula included, teach him about love and passion, though he stumbles upon girls his own age (Ingrid Rubio star of Carlos Saura's TAXI) once or twice. The film is entertaining and well worth your time. Too bad it was not released in the U.S. or the U.K. Nevertheless, it is now available in video (with English subtitles).

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