Customer Reviews

The Grandfather [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It was only by accident that I happened to see this fine film. It did not take long for me to realize my good fortune. An elderly Spanish count wants to determine which of two young sisters is his legitimate grandchild. Both of the girls are beautiful and talented and love and care for their grandfather, who is a kind of modern day Don Quixote. He is a hard man to deal with and makes life difficult for family and friends; rightfully so, I might add.

The Count values honor above all and this leads him astray as he tries to discover which of the girls has his blood. We are as much in the dark about this problem as the Count and we watch closely as he observes the girls and forms his opinion.

Both the viewer and the Count learn that love is more important and powerful than honor in the powerful conclusion to this film. All the loose ends, and there are many of them, come together in a moving and satisfying conclusion.

The discovery of the Counts true grandchild is the mystery at the heart of Grandfather, but many other subplots make this a very long film to watch. Even so, the acting is so good and the story so compelling that I was sorry when the film finally ended. This movie deserves a wider audience and I hope this review serves that end.

I'm 23. I like electronica, movies with killer special effects, and far out theories on quantum mechanics. This movie is a placid drama that follows the lives of a group of eccentric family members and their immediate friends across the Spanish Countryside.

How could I like this film? Allow me to explain.

Without telling you too much about the film in specifics, it's a tale of beautiful foreign influences on family, morality, psychological healing, and the human presence of compassion. It's as far removed from an American Daytime soap as possible.

The music in the film compliments the breathtaking Spanish countryside in a quaintly eclectic fashion. Two recurring aural themes are Erik Satie's Gymnopedie and Edward Elgar's Nimrod.

The protagonist, an aging man who enters into the lives of his two granddaughters as they undergo the uprooting form their country home, is a man filled with wisdom and simultaneously passion and ferocity. He interacts with youth in a most refreshing fashion, embracing the slipping of emotion reason in his mind, yet holding onto the wisdom years under the sun has taught him.

Plenty of scandal, plenty of plot twist and tasty trajectory, I wouldn't say it keeps you on the edge of your seat, but certainly washes you with beautiful countryside, delicate and effusive music, and brilliant psychology and dialogue between characters. In some ways it reminds me of the playful interplay between Dostoyevsky's characters in Brother's Karamazov.

There's a great showdown with monks, and town buffoons, and a great friendship is formed between the grandfather and his granddaughters' educational mentor. I laughed, almost cried during this film, and sincerely felt satisfied after the deep, meaningful moral ending.

Highly Recommended.

This film is a masterpeice of Spanish Literature made into film. With classic themes of Love, honor, family and pride this film is one everyone can relate to on some level. In addition the use of light in this film will take your breathe away. It is so vivid as to be like another actor in the scenes. I rented this film with little thought and came away astounded. Now I own it. So if you can watch one movie without a car chase or an explosion you ought to make it this one! What a gem!

This is a beautifully filmed, scripted and acted movie. It was directed by the same director of "To Begin Again/Volver a Empezar" (1982). However, many non-spanish speakers might not have noticed this, but the spanish language soundtrack (the original language of this film) is out of sync with the video. I contacted Miramax and they sent me another copy of the DVD. It had exactly the same problem. It is a shame that such a beautiful film was produced without adequate quality control. I almost gave it 3 stars because of this defect; but this is not the fault of the artists.

EL ABUELO (The Grandfather) began as a 1897 novel by Benito Pérez Galdós and was adapted for the screen by writer/director José Luis Garci in 1998, a year when it was nominated for Best Foreign Film Oscar. It is a period piece of epic proportions, an immensely beautiful work both visually and emotionally, that assures the film's becoming a beloved standard in the cinematic library.

Don Rodrigo de Arista Potestad (Fernando Fernán Gómez, the brilliant Peruvian actor from such films as 'Butterfly', 'Belle Epoque', 'All About My Mother, etc) is a crusty old aristocrat who has been in America for the Gold Rush who returns to Spain (a small town of Jerusa) when his son dies. He concern is about a letter his son wrote to him that one of his two granddaughters was sired by another man, an artist, and the old man is determined to find out which one of the granddaughters should rightfully inherit is name and his money. He arrives to meet Dolly (Cristina Cruz) and Nelly (Cristina Cruz) and their beautiful mother Doña Lucrecia (Cayetana Guillén Cuervo), a woman who has survived emotional hardships but has generously favored the small town with gifts while giving her daughters in home schooling by the intelligent, sensitive Don Pío Coronado (Rafael Alonso) who has been forsaken by his own family. The once butler of the home Senén Corchado (Agustín González) has been freed to become an oily capitalist, eager to squander the family money.

Don Rodrigo (Abuelo) challenges the family to maintain the honor of his name, becomes fast friends with Don Pío, and the two set about to discover whether it is Dolly or Nelly that is the true bloodline granddaughter. The manner in which the investigation proceeds includes the warm relationship Abuelo forms with the girls, the way he decides the future of Lucrecia, and the bonding he forms with Pío. It is Pío who challenges Abuelo with the question of which is more important, honor or love, and it is this question that suffuses the resolution of the story with surprises and with extraordinary tenderness.

The actors are all superb with special kudos to Fernando Fernán Gómez and Rafael Alonso. The cinematography of the coastlines of Spain is breathtakingly beautiful and the manner in which Raúl Pérez Cubero frames his images glows. The original musical score is by Manuel Balboa whose love theme is hauntingly played by both piano and orchestra: the moments of music by Satie (Gymnopédie) and Elgar (the Nimrod variation from Enigma Variations) are beautifully performed by the Madrid Orchestra under the baton of Ángel Gil Ordóñez. The film is long (well over two hours) and there are some synchrony defects in the spoken soundtrack (?dubbing for the granddaughters' voices?), but these are minor flaws in an eloquently beautiful film. In Spanish with English subtitles. Grady Harp, February 07

This powerful Spanish film lost to the monster hit LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL in 1998.What a shame that such a wonderful and multi-layered gem lay undiscovered to me until now.

What on the surface appears to be a very simple story of a Grandfather wanting to know which of his two granddaughters is his blood,is frankly way more than what is presented at face value.Even down to the choices of music allowed by director Jose Luis Garci,THE GRANDFATHER is an engrossing story about the end of one way of life and the inevitability of the new.Spain,like many countries, is embarking on the the twentieth century.Governments have changed,the bourgeois class has risen in worth,aristocratic families have little left than their honored names and the players at this time are caught "in the blessed purgatory" between the uncomfortable shift of the loyalty and honor to the old system vs.independent living and a move towards equal living and opportunity for all citizens.Count Albrit,the Grandfather, has returned to one of his many homes to uncover the lineage of his two granddaughters.Bloodline is the all important and all-consuming importance for the Count.He knows that his daughter-in-law,somewhere along the line,had an affair on his son,and will only recognize his true blood as the rightful heiress to a family fortune that extends seven generations,but is no where near in fortune as it once was.The townspeople treat the Grandfather with "loyalty and respect and honor",but as the film points out,they are now no longer subservient to his family...or are they? Count Albrit, though "respecting" the people in their new positions in life,still has the old aristocratic "bow to me" and is insulted by their "ingratitude" for how his family's benevolence over the years has made it possible for them to be where they are today.Each group is willing to betray the other, just as The Grandfather,Count Albrit is willing to deny one girl in favor of another.The screenplay returns us time and again to the English Bard Shakespeare's question of "To be or not to be;whether 'tis nobler..." and to the romance and freedom that has resulted in France.Even the music of English composers Edward Elgar (English) and Eris Satie (France) play up against the music of Spain showing us that Spain's old way must decline and new life must be accommodated.The the mother of the two girls is the perfect metaphor of this struggle.She married out of duty and what she thought was love,only to fall for a painter at some point and give birth to one of the two girls.She herself is a victim caught between the decaying old and the rising new.Even the two girls are different in their respective attitudes.The eldest,Dolly,has the aristocratic attitude and feels a sense of superiority for her Albrit heritage; the younger,Nelly, is a free-spirited artist who wants to experience all that life offers.Count Albrit thinks he knows which girl is his blood.Does he...and how can he deny love to the other in order to honor one? This dilemma plays right up to the last minute of the film.It is a thought-provoking script and sublimely acted by the same cast that starred in ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER.The cinematography is Raul Perez Cubero is some of the finest ever done.This is a "thinker's film" for those who question which is nobler;LOVE or HONOR? Truly a magnificent piece of film making.

THis is the forth nomination for Academy Award Winner Jose Luis Garci. It's a must see!

Excellent drama and interpretation of Fernando Fernan. The theme of the personal relationship is develop in this story thru different situations and issues.

Oh my god! This was the most boring movie I'd ever seen! I bought it because of all the good reviews for it, but it was soooo slow moving, pointless, without any redeeming qualities whatsoever...

AND I made the mistake of showing it to my Spanish class--it was pure torture.

I honestly don't know why the other reviewers gave this movie a good review--I think if you like the slow moving, "scenically beautiful", lots of silence type artistic movies, you may like this, but otherwise, AVOID IT!!!

Scenery was great, filmed in some spectacular parts of Spain, and many times the cinematography did it justice. Despite all that, how the story was executed was almost a soap opera, coming across forced and contrived, and the dubbing was HORRENDOUS. I hope the dialogue was better in Spanish than the English subtitles, but badly delivered (and dubbed) lines tend to have a universal impact, regardless of the language. Oddly enough, the originally spoken lines appear to have been Spanish and then overdubbed again in Spanish....go figure...

The main female character (the mother) came across like some cheezy porn star character...I kept expecting her to bed down any of the dozen or so male characters in the movie in some ridiculous fashion (Oh Senior Perez...you're here to ask for a favor...and what favor would THAT be, por favor...). It wasn't her fault entirely as some of the costume and set designs just didn't hit the mark and wouldn't have been entirely out-of-place in a period-piece porn flick

Interestingly, in a reversal from most flicks about nobility and their lower class servants, the high-class land-owners in this picture are the moral and noble characters (even when they're broke and don't have money...they have their "honor!"). The low-class commoners (with the exception of a tutor) are portrayed as untrustworthy and conniving, even after they've gained wealth. The whole film had this subtle underlying current of "the good ol' days long gone" when the nobility kept things strict, fair and honorable, and how the unscrupulous lower-caste had slowly undermined the natural order of things.

The whole film (soundtrack included) came across as some sort of a less-than-skilled attempt at that "Cinema Paradiso" vibe (which was a flick I did like), where sentimentalism and tragedy are meant to pull at your heart strings. Only problem here for me is no strings were plucked...

The movie wasn't horrible (except for the dubbing...just can't see how people overlooked that...ESPECIALLY native Spanish speakers), as I did enjoy the scenery quite a bit, and the second half was a bit better than the first, but as a whole, it just didn't hit the mark. With the exception of the grandfather and the dude who played the tutor (and they weren't Oscar material), most of the acting was just uninspired, which was on par with the dialogue and story line and tended to fit the movie as a whole

All in all, a less-talented production of a "Cinema Paradiso" type of story. And if you loved that (and aren't picky about bad dubbing), you might like this a bit as well.

Finally to qualify myself as a reviewer, I love plenty of foreign flicks, and have no problems reading subtitles. For me this one just wasn't up to par as a whole.