Belle Époque (film)

Belle Époque is a 1992 Spanish comedy-drama film directed by Fernando Trueba. The title does not derive from the period in French history known as the Belle Époque ("The Beautiful Era") but from the days before the Spanish Civil War. Belle Époque received the Goya Award for Best Film along with eight other Goya Awards and was named Best Foreign Language Film at the 66th Academy Awards.[1]

Belle Époque
Theatrical release poster
Directed byFernando Trueba
Produced byAndrés Vicente Gómez
Written byRafael Azcona
José Luis García Sánchez
Fernando Trueba
StarringJorge Sanz
Penélope Cruz
Fernando Fernán Gómez
Miriam Díaz Aroca
Ariadna Gil
Maribel Verdú
Music byAntoine Duhamel
Guillermo Fernández-Shaw
Federico Romero
CinematographyJosé Luis Alcaine
Edited byCarmen Frías
Distributed bySony Pictures Classics
Release date
  • 4 December 1992 (1992-12-04)
Running time
109 minutes
CountrySpain
LanguageSpanish
Box office$11 million

Plot

The year is 1931. Spain is politically divided between Republicans and Traditionalists and on the verge of the Spanish Second Republic. Fernando, a young soldier, deserts. He befriends Manolo (Fernando Fernán Gómez), a man with a large house in the country. Fernando meets and is enchanted by Manolo's four daughters. As he meets each of the first three one by one, he falls in love and has sex with each of them, determining to marry. With each one, however, a complication arises: Clara (Miriam Díaz-Aroca), a widow who only recently lost her husband and who seeks solace with Fernando; Violeta (Ariadna Gil), a lesbian who is attracted to Fernando only when he is dressed as a woman for a costume ball and Rocío (Maribel Verdú), a social climber who is about to marry into a royalist family for the security it would provide and who only momentarily succumbs to Fernando's charms. Heartbroken each time, the father of the girls encourages Fernando to have patience. Each of the daughters is beautiful and represents a different aspect of feminine sexuality. The youngest of the family, Luz (Penélope Cruz), represents naïveté. While Fernando is pursuing her sisters, Luz gets progressively angry and jealous. Eventually Fernando realizes, however, that Luz is the best one of the four to marry.

Cast

Critical reception

Belle Époque received positive reviews getting a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film is mentioned in the 2010 American film The Fighter.

Year-end lists

Box office

In Spain it was the highest-grossing Spanish film of 1992 with a gross of over 725 million Spanish pesetas ($5.58 million).[4] In the United States and Canada it grossed $5.4 milion[5] for a worldwide gross in excess of $11 million.

Awards

Nominations

See also

References
  1. "The 66th Academy Awards (1994) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 25 September 2015.
  2. Mayo, Mike (December 30, 1994). "The Hits and Misses at the Movies in '94". The Roanoke Times (Metro ed.). p. 1.
  3. Clark, Mike (December 28, 1994). "Scoring with true life, `True Lies' and `Fiction.'". USA Today (Final ed.). p. 5D.
  4. "Top 10 grossers in Spain". Variety. 4 October 1993. p. 66.
  5. "Belle Époque". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  6. "Berlinale: 1993 Programme". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
  7. "BAFTA: Film in 1995". bafta.org. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.