Tribute to the 25h anniversary of Trueba’s classic. Academy Awarded ‘Belle Epoque‘ is a masterful, lyrical film that seemed to say everything about the end of an era for the Spanish people. The film was screened in 35mm thanks to ICAA.
Winner of 10 Goya Awards, including for Best Film and Best Director and Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1993, ‘Belle Epoque’ is a hot-blooded human comedy that takes place between the December 1930 attempted military uprising against the monarchy and the proclamation in April 1931 of the Second Republic. Fernando deserts from the army and ends up in a rural house inhabited by Manolo and his four beautiful daughters.
Trueba portrays this period of time in a utopian mode, configured as “an oasis of freedom, pleasure and uninhibited sexual experimentation”, in which the upcoming Republic appears as a paradisiacal space capable of erasing a complex and problematic historical moment. Gorgeously filmed and exuberantly acted by a fine cast, Trueba’s sexy, bittersweet and contemplative comedy takes us back in time and place to an uncertain but hopeful moment of calm before the storm and celebrates sensuality and the human body. It is a reminder that sex can be kind and gentle, tender and beautiful.
