Jamón, jamón

Comedy, Drama, Romance

Stefania Sandrelli	La madre puta
Anna Galiena	La puta madre
Juan Diego	El padre
Penélope Cruz	La hija de puta
Javier Bardem	El chorizo
Jordi Mollà	El niñato
Tomás Martín	Amigo Raúl
Armando del Río	Amigo José Luis
Diana Sassen	Amiga Silvia
Chema Mazo	Padre de Silvia
Penelope Cruz

Director	Bigas Luna
Producer	Andrés Vicente Gómez; Manuel Lombardero
Writer	Cuca Canals; Bigas Luna

Salted pork shanks as leitmotiv in Jamón Jamón a dark comedy about an absurd love triangle: this is what post-Franco cine is all about (food and sex). Spanish tortillas (i.e., potato omelets) are also big in this one. Director José Juan Bigas Luna is intelligent, wry, and--despite the formulaic narrative that melodrama must essentially contain--unpredictable. At times his film exudes a certain Almodóvar flavour, but there is an edge, perhaps even heavy-handedness, to the dark humour that is either Luna's success or his downfall. The film garnered the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, after all. Try to follow: sexy Penelope Cruz (Belle Epoque) is growing up with her mother outside town on the wrong side of the highway. Together they run a truck stop where cars and life literally race past. Cruz is in love with Jordí Molla, by whom she is pregnant, but Molla's bourgeois mother, played by Anna Galiena (Being Human), thinks he can and should do better (of course, neither Cruz nor his mother knows of the erotic, avian interludes Molla enjoys on the side.) To save her son from the lower classes, Galiena hires Javier Bardem, a muscular, pretty man (whose regular consumption of the pork he distributes for a living has enhanced his sexual appeal) to pursue Cruz. The dark comedy finds a proper ending to the triangle in a grotesque but comedic landscape of death. This is not a cookie-cutter movie but rather one that will resonate with both your light and dark sides. After each surprise, you'll chuckle, feel guilty, and chuckle again. --Erik Macki, Amazon.com