Presented by Facets Cinematheque, this festival of new narrative, documentary, animated, and experimental films from Spain runs Friday through Thursday, November 13 through 19, at Facets Cinematheque. Following are selected films screening; a full schedule is available at facets.org. For more information call 773-281-4114.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Camino More like a rosary than a movie, this 2008 Spanish drama is loosely based on the story of Alexia Gonzalez-Barros, a teenage girl whose Catholic devotion and sunny acceptance of an excruciating cancer death in 1985 have inspired a campaign for beatification. As the title character, Nerea Camacho suffers serenely through one devastating spinal operation after another, and writer-director Javier Fesser cranks up the emotion with soaring strings, visionary angels, and fantasy sequences riffing on Walt Disney’s Cinderella. The movie has been praised for its skeptical treatment of Opus Dei, the personal prelature that guides Camino and her rigidly devout mother (Carme Elias), though I couldn’t taste this through all the syrup. Gonzalez-Barros’s family have denounced Camino, objecting particularly to the moment when a priest initiates a John Hughes-style slow clap as the poor girl finally relinquishes her spirit. But the movie cleaned up at Spain’s Goya awards, taking best film, director, screenwriter, actor, actress, supporting actor, and new actress. In Spanish with subtitles. 143 min. —J.R. Jones Sat 11/14, 8:15 PM, and Sun 11/15, 2 PM
Ramirez Actor Cristian Magaloni and writer-director Albert Arizza should be able to write their own tickets on the strength of this astoundingly assured, no-budget psychological crime drama (2008). Magaloni quietly burns holes in the screen as a handsome young sociopath who supports his overlapping hobbies (clubbing, photography, strangling his sex partners) by slinging what must be the worst cocaine in Madrid. Pointedly decorous where skin and violence are concerned, the film delivers an icy, creeping craziness that gore merchants like Rob Zombie and Eli Roth could only dream of. Geraldine Chaplin puts in an unexpected cameo as a gallerist who gets off lightly after dismissing the killer’s photographic portfolio as “lacking realism.” In Spanish with subtitles. 92 min. —Cliff Doerksen Sat 11/14, 6 PM, and Mon 11/16, 9 PM
