Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16782 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-08-23
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 105 minutes

Synopsis
The sultry Spanish countryside, 1931. The monarchy is ending, and the army and church reign supreme over Spanish life. In this tumultuous world, a young soldier Fernando (Jorge Sanz), decides to desert the army in hopes of finding a more pleasant way to live and seeks refuge on the farm of widowed Manolo. When the farmer's four beautiful daughters arrive (including Penelope Cruz), in turn they use their own unique charms to seduce (and instruct!) the handsome, exhausted yet willing young soldier. One particularly memorable tip requires a clean handkerchief! A charming, idyllic period comedy of young love and loving. Academy Award: Best Foreign Film.

Customer Reviews

A romantic, lush historical comedy
This is one of my favourite films, and I've been waiting a long time for its release. It was the film that really brought Penelope Cruz to the world's attention, and she has never appeared better than in this, as the youngest of four sensual, eccentric daughters of a provincial burghermeister in Civil War Spain. Into their lives falls a deserter, wrongly arrested by bumbling National Guards, who finds the charms of the four women, and their idyllic lives in the midst of war, irresistible.

Fernando Trueba has not made as beautiful a film since, and the twists and turns of the seemingly simple story dazzle and dizzy, with a glorious cast of supporting characters that in the limits of the tiny village make a true picaresque. The journey through this belle epoque is well worth the patience.

Spanish interlude
With Belle Epoque, the director Trueba has achieved a delicate pastiche on Spanish attitudes and behaviour in the pre-Civil War period. The fluctations in political power affect even the most rural areas and form the background to this humorous study of four young modern/modish Spanish sisters who run rings round an army deserter given sanctuary by their father. The benevolent and amazingly laid back paterfamilias has a good understanding of the sexual mores of the younger generation, and is seen to side with the handsome deserter throughout, more so in his inadvertent wooing of the Lesbian sister! The tragedy of the priest lends authentic credance to the volatile years prior to the Civil War. Despite this, the girls manage to not only survive but also enjoy their summer stay on the family finca, and Penelope Cruz, the youngest and most innocent of the four, ends up the victor. Whilst well worth seeing for the humour and period-connections, the end perhaps may be seen as a gentle let down in its compliance with normality.

Not my idea of a romantic comedy
Let me start by saying I only watched this film because it features Penelope Cruz in one of her earliest roles. I'm not a fan of non-horror European cinema, and maybe that's why my reaction to the film is significantly less enthusiastic than that of other reviewers. I found Belle Epoque somewhat disturbing, actually. Basically, this is the story of an army deserter who sleeps his way through an entire family of sisters - talk about your hand-me-downs - yet it turns out that his relationships aren't the weirdest ones on display. I will say this: when you put a man in a dress and play out a really weird cross-dressing romantic encounter with him, you're going to lose this viewer to a significant degree. This whole film is just really, really weird - almost deviant, even.

The story takes place in 1931 Spain, a country on the verge of discarding its monarchy and becoming a Republic. The politics of the day and age play a definite part in the whole story, and I'm sure my less than spectacular knowledge of Spanish history was a bit of a handicap in terms of digesting everything I saw and heard, but this is really a film about people and not politics. Fernando (Jorge Sanz) is a young deserter who finds shelter and friendship with an older gentleman named Manolo (Fernando Fernan Gomez) - until Manolo's four daughters arrive for an extended visit. Rather than return to Madrid as planned, Fernando decides to hang around a while after getting a look at Clara (Miriam Diaz Aroca), Violeta (Ariadna Gil), Rocio (Maribel Verdu), and Luz (Penelope Cruz). They apparently take a shine to him, as well, as the three oldest sisters manage to seduce him one after another, leaving young Luz increasingly jealous. I certainly don't know what they see in the shiftless fellow; the only thing he has in terms of personality is a vague Robert Downey, Jr., aura about him (that's not a good thing, by the way). He is much more appealing than Rocio's on-again, off-again fiancé Juanito (Gabino Diego), the film's most irritating character by far.

I personally found this whole story the very opposite of romantic. The sexual encounters are all quick and clumsy, and the sisters have no problem sharing their experiences with one another. It becomes a little easier to understand the sisters when their diva of a mother shows up for a visit, though. At that point, the gang's all here - Fernando the cad, the four sisters, the father, the mother, and the mother's lover. It's free love all over the place. Fairly disgusted with the whole lot of them, all I could do was hope that Luz might not follow in the footsteps of her ribald sisters - even though it's hard to wish too many good thoughts for a girl more than willing to claim a man who already knows her three sisters quite intimately.

I guess some viewers can just take this film at face value and have fun with it, but I was really turned off by the morals of these characters - and I daresay that my fellow old-fashioned curmudgeons will share some of my own disquiet over the nature of the entire story. If nothing else, I think it's safe to say that Belle Epoque clearly isn't for everyone.