DISCLAIMER: You may need to know a little bit of Spanish history (50's - 70's) to understand some of the points. However, most of them are easy to get, and you will find that before you stop laughing at one of the jokes, there are another hitting you!
This movie can easily be considered a classic. If you liked Gillian's Brazil, this one will blow you away. Be aware that the director did not try to make a funny story, but a tender, memorable story about paternity and family ties. He made an impressive movie that still can make you laugh so hard that your belly will hurt!
At the same time, the baseline transmits the idea that 'no matter how ugly, weird, and mentally disabled you are, you can be happy loving and feeling loved'. It is also a monument erected to praise ingenuity.
**Possible Spoiler**
A couple of dwarf Martians arrive to hearth in a 'convertible' seat 600 small popular old Spanish car, complaining about the food in their planet, and are adopted by P.tinto and Olivia, an old couple that have no children and write daily to 'Paris' to 'order' a baby. Not happy with that, the family increases when a monstrous, overweighed psycho escaped from an asylum, that does not speak Spanish to begin with, is adopted as another child and renamed 'Joselito' little Jose. Time elapses and the house is populated by yet another freak, Usillos, a fixing guy that basically lives there because their work takes for ever. Surreal things are everywhere; for example, one of the dwarf Martians gets converted to Catholicism and becomes a priest (!)
There are no 'bad guys' and 'good guys'; basically everything is so twisted that such tags will make no sense at all. There are more than one spots where one thinks that the movie is ending... but not!
BTW, don't miss the soundtrack!
rating 10/10
This movie can easily be considered a classic. If you liked Gillian's Brazil, this one will blow you away. Be aware that the director did not try to make a funny story, but a tender, memorable story about paternity and family ties. He made an impressive movie that still can make you laugh so hard that your belly will hurt!
At the same time, the baseline transmits the idea that 'no matter how ugly, weird, and mentally disabled you are, you can be happy loving and feeling loved'. It is also a monument erected to praise ingenuity.
**Possible Spoiler**
A couple of dwarf Martians arrive to hearth in a 'convertible' seat 600 small popular old Spanish car, complaining about the food in their planet, and are adopted by P.tinto and Olivia, an old couple that have no children and write daily to 'Paris' to 'order' a baby. Not happy with that, the family increases when a monstrous, overweighed psycho escaped from an asylum, that does not speak Spanish to begin with, is adopted as another child and renamed 'Joselito' little Jose. Time elapses and the house is populated by yet another freak, Usillos, a fixing guy that basically lives there because their work takes for ever. Surreal things are everywhere; for example, one of the dwarf Martians gets converted to Catholicism and becomes a priest (!)
There are no 'bad guys' and 'good guys'; basically everything is so twisted that such tags will make no sense at all. There are more than one spots where one thinks that the movie is ending... but not!
BTW, don't miss the soundtrack!
rating 10/10