• Belle Époque

6/27/25 (Fri)

Fernando Trueba’s 1993 Oscar-winning comedy was leaving Criterion at the end of this month, and having enjoyed his innovative They Shot the Piano Player, I decided on a whim to check it out.

The light-hearted film is set in the Spanish countryside in the early 1930s when the nation is tottering on revolution. The title refers to the director’s vision of the brief interlude between the toppling of the monarchy and the start of the Franco regime. Fernando, a handsome soldier and wide-eyed innocent, has gone AWOL after an unsuccessful uprising and is wandering the countryside. He is befriended by an old bohemian painter living alone in a sprawling house. They become close, helped by the boy’s cooking skills and companionship. When the man’s family is set to visit, Fernando decides to move on to Madrid to seek a future. As he is about to board the train, however, he gets a look at the man’s four nubile daughters just alighting – and decides to hang around a bit longer.

It’s pretty clear right away where this is going, but the fun is in getting there. I’m not sure if such a free-spirited attitude toward sex reflected the reality at that time in this conservative country, but it serves here as the symbol of a blissful period before the fascists spoiled the party. The father is perfectly aware of what Fernando is up to given that he met him in a brothel; as he explains to the priest, “He hung around when he got a whiff of my girls’ p*ssies.” For their part, the four daughters happily share their prey and exchange all the dirty details; the father himself gets his lusty moment with his wife (four hours and 47 minutes, to be precise) when she returns with her rich lover, who’s left fuming outside, and even the priest expresses a randy side (told that chastity is difficult: “Christ, you’re telling me?”).

Everything is crumbling in this age: politics, morals, the church. The church is a particular target, with the priest hardly even trying anymore, such as his winking acceptance of the frantic fiancé’s demand to be released from Catholicism as a protest against his mother. The film opens with death as the confusion over which regime to follow leads one soldier to impulsively kill his commander (who’s also his father-in-law), then himself out of guilt. It also closes with a death as the priest, despairing over the church’s diminished authority, takes drastic action. Those incidents, however, are quickly passed over – the bride and groom, for example, simply shrug the latter off and get married without the bothersome wedding – in this nostalgic look back at an age that may never have been. The moral questions are mere background for the surrounding farce.

It’s worth noting that while Fernando does frolic with each of the daughters by the end, we realize that’s he’s the one who’s been seduced:

• Venablea beds him when she’s in male dress as a mustachioed soldier and he’s in drag for a carnival. I have to assume that the Jack Lemmon look and hilarious tango, which she insists on leading, are a tribute to Some Like It Hot (the director was a huge Billy Wilder fan). Their sex scene is one of the funniest on film. The naïve Fernando announces the dalliance to the surprised father the next morning and says that he’s in love with her, only to learn that she’s a lesbian who wants nothing more to do with him. (Not sure how realistic this is, but the sequence is too stylish to complain about.)
• Rocio is a social climber with a whiny but wealthy fiancé. She has fun with Fernando just for the sex, but her heart remains firmly with her fiancé’s wallet.
• Clara is a widow looking for some solace, having heard about the boy’s talents from her sisters.
• The youngest, Luz, still a virgin, is kept out of the loop by her sisters but is perfectly aware what is happening. She is furious at Fernando for not including her, but manages in the end not only to get him in the sack but marry him as well.

Fernando is something of a cipher like Bobby in Company, looking for romance without truly understanding what that is. He is convinced after each roll in the hay that he’s in love, but bounces back pretty quickly when the next opportunity offers itself. There’s a sense that he marries Luz simply because that’s who’s left in the musical chairs game. Whether he’ll be physically faithful with her is unclear given his weakness to temptation – and his father-in-law hardly sets a good example – but that’s another film. Amazingly there’s no nudity, either male or female, despite all the sex, which I thought made it sexier. The story ends on a poignant note as the father, having seen off his wife, daughters, and companion-turned-son-in-law, rides alone back to his home. I somehow thought of Tokyo Story with parents ultimately left alone as their brood inevitably go on to their own lives.

The film boasts a near-perfect cast. Jorge Sanz was adequate as Fernando; he is charming, looks the part, and properly plays it straight, even in drag. But the real stars are the daughters – Ariadna Gil, Maribel Verdú, Miriam Díaz Aroca, and Penélope Cruz (her second film) – all uniformly excellent, with special kudos to Gil for the not-so-lesbian bed scene. Veteran Fernando Fernán-Gómez is predictably solid as the father, Mary Carmen Ramírez and Agustín González couldn’t be better as the wife and priest, and French actor Michel Galabru (the riotous homophobic politician in La Cage Aux Folles) makes a welcome appearance as the lover.

The film deftly satirizes Spanish society without losing touch with the story, maintaining its comic tone and its focus on the characters rather than heavy themes. Great characters, great script (at least as subtitled here), great acting – pretty flawless all around. Loved this film.