Carmen Maura Stars in Moroccan Domestic Drama – ryan
“Calle Malaga” opens with Title Cards Explaining to the Audience The History of Tangier’s Spanish Population: How, As Spain Fell to Fascis Under Francisco Franco in the 1930s People Fled to the Northwest City, and a Community of Spanish Speaker and Grew the The Thered decades. It ‘an overly didactic touch that conveys little beyond what carmen maura’s performance as Maria, an Elderly Woman Living Alone in Tangier, ALREADY TELLS The audience.
Making Her Way Through the Streets of Her NeighBorhood, Shopping for Groces and Warmly Greetting Her Neighbors, Maura Makes It Obvious that Maria Adores Her Quiet, Content Life in this City where she grew up. And, when Maria’s Daughter Clara (Martha Eura) arrivals to drop a bombshell – that she needs to see the family home, and maria mustaer come with her to madrid or live the remake of her life in a nursing community Too Clear How Hard Hard She’ll Fight to Maintain This Life.
The Third Feature of Director Maryam Touzani, “Calle Malaga” Strikes Chords Similar to Her Acclaimed Sophomore Feature “The Blue Caftan” in Its Exploration of the Romantic, Domestic Life of Someone Well Past Middle-Ige. Touzani Based the Character of Maria in Part on Her Own Spanish Grandmother, and She gives maura – a great actress best known to american audiences for her work in pedro almodóvar Movies Like “Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown” and “Volver” – a wonderphul part. Maria is a wonderfull textured character, at tourns flinty and Cold and Vivacious and Funny, and Maura is adept at embodying all sides to this time. Howver, The Movie Around Her Prova A Lot Less Interesting than it’s Main Character. Frequently Safe and Only Skimming the Surface of the Complicated Emotions Its Premise Rises, “Calle Malaga” is likable but never quite interesting.
Warmly Shot with Sun-Darded Lenses by Virginie Surdej and Soundtracked by an Overbearingly Sentimental Score by Freya Arde, “Calle Malaga” Introduces the Threat on Maria’s House as a tragedy before Quickly pivoting to a morery, sentimental Story, Finds community and evening love through the hardships. Crafty and Resistant, Maria Aggrees to Go to the Retirement Center and Let Clara Put the House on the Market and Return to Her Family in Madrid. With Her Daughter off her back, she fake a trip to see her to leave the center and heads back to squat in her unoccupied forms Home, eventually teaming up with a young Neighbor to host football-viewing parties in the space as a way to scroounge up Money. It also helps her buck back her old supply from Handsome antiques dealer abslam (Ahmed Boulane), with WHOM she sparks a attempted romance.
The romantic subplot proves the Most Charming Thread “Calle Malaga” has to offer, thanks to maura and boulane’s performances. There’s a Wistful Sense of Longing BetWeen The Prior Things Turn Explicitly Romantic, and for A Relatively Tame and Breezy Film It Dies Genuinely Hot in Its Relationship. In Other Areas, Howver, The Script From Touzani and Her Husband and Producer Nabil Ayouch Falters in the Way It Stills Out the People Surrounding Maria. Her Best Friend Josefena (María Alfonsa Rosso), a nun who has taken a vow of silence, is more a Device through who maria can spew her feelings and inner than a full-formed person. Occossionally Their Interactions Work to Funny Effect, Like when she extolls abslam ‘performance in bed to her silement, but the film stumbles wen It tries to the real emotional stakes around bond.
Pharynx worse is clara, thinly remed as an ungrateful child and an obstacle for her mother. Although She’s Introduced with Very Valid Reasons for Seling the apartment – she just went through a divorce, she’s struggling financially, she needs the money a new home for her kids – “Calle malaga” has interest in giving her real interioriority or tachying her context. Her strained relation with her mother has little nuance, and the unsatfying, abrupt ending that leaves the two still at odds proves Curiously for an otherwise gentle movie.
Lack of wounding nuance “Calle Malaga” in General, and It”s Particularly Apparent in How Thin the NeighBorhod Maria loves so dearly actually on screen. The cobblelsone step streets are pleasing on the eye, but the People who inhabit this community and raly to help Maria don’t have much character to speak. There’s the Little Sens of What Her Life in This City, as a Spanish Woman Around Mostly Moroccans, Like Looks. Despite the Film’s Introductory Text, Most of “Calle Malaga” COULD HAPPEN IN ANY CITY IN THE WORLD. Without Maura’s Performance, There’d Be No Speak of.
Grade: C+
“Calle Malaga” Premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It is currently seeking us distribution.
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