Cold Winter Sun (2004) User Reviews

beautiful drama in Euskadi

[dutchtom1 · 9/10 · 18 April 2005]

Unax Ugalde seems to be a guarantee for top quality movies. Every single movie he has been cast in, has been an intelligent, emotional, well written, atmospheric film. His excellent acting skills are here enhanced by those of Marisa Paredes. A real surprise in the movie is the actress who plays the tragi-comic role of the young prostitute. Her sub-story left a big emotional impact on me. Unax plays a rich kid, with a mental history, who is released from the institution where has been 'healed' and is returned to his former elderly house, abandoned by his parents, but given the financial resources to survive. He learns that in the drama of his childhood many more persons were intricate, as he gets to know the people who live on the wrong side of the tracks of town. It amazes me that sugary nonsense like 'mar adentro' gets hailed into heaven, while much more original movies such as these hardly find their way to a mainstream audience. I'm glad however I discovered it, and recommend it anyone to watch it.

poor one

[dcldan · 3/10 · 1 August 2006]

Adrian has just gone out of the asylum, being rich and with no parents, his life seems empty. One day, he meets Gonzalo, a poor boy whom mother is prostitute. Desperate for earning some money, Gonzalo helps Adrian to search about his life and who where his parents. This is a movie from a new director, and it is perfectly clear in most of the film: scenes not correctly directed, dialogues a little forced, some incoherences in the script...Anyway, the ending is unexpectedly well done (well, just a little) and that saves a little the film. Actors are known and with great quality, nevertheless, they are not inspired enough to make the movie interesting; all of them have done better papers in other film. The film results boring and probably you will spend most of the time thinking how much time will pass until it ends. Of course there are lots of worse films, but, sure, there are many many better ones.

Great movie about the lack of love and its consequences

[Anouk_BohemianSoul · 10/10 · 11 January 2007]

This is a wonderful movie about how the lack of love and care from the most important people in someone's life can hurt you and make you get the wrong way and loose yourself in a world of deep frustration and pain. "Raquel" (Marisa Paredes) is a bitter prostitute who hates her life and her son's vulnerability. This one, "Gonzalo" (Javi Pereira), is an innocent and sensitive boy who fails trying to move around a jungle he can't stand. He's in love with "Mimo" (Marta Etura) but the girl seems to feel just a deep care for the sweet boy. Her father is a rude man whose makes her life and other's life difficult. Her cousin is just the opposite of "Gonzalo" and uses him to get some benefit. Gonzalo gets some peace with a friend of his mother, another prostitute called "Carmen" (Raquel Pérez), who, instead of her bad situation, tries to go on with her life as good as she can. When "Adrián" (Unax Ugalde), a young man who has recently leave a psychiatric, ask Gonzalo for a gun at the beginning of the film the things starts to change. Adrián got Gonzalo into his plans helping him as well with his vulnerability and changing his life.

Pablo Malo lives up to his name...

[rainking_es · 4/10 · 9 March 2006]

To start with, I have to point out the fact that you're gonna feel completely lost for more than half an hour. Yeah, some things happen, but you don't know why or what for. When you finally figure things out you just realize that it's nothing but a twisted soad opera, dealing with mature prostitutes, dead mothers, illegitimate sons... The characters are rather poor and the actors (specially the young ones) don't help that much to make'em look credible. Only Marisa Paredes stands out, but she's a superb actress, no matter if the movie is pure rubbish.

The only positive things to say about "Frío Sol De Invierno" is that débutant Pablo Malo seems to have good intentions, and he's filmed a couple of scenes that are quite intense... Well, maybe the next time...

*My rate: 4/10

A nice (nothing to do with Almodovar) story

[mn_ucm · 8/10 · 2 February 2007]

I liked this film very much. I agree with a previous comment that pointed out the technical mistakes of the director in some parts of the film. Certainly, it is not the best film ever, but it is good enough to spend 90 minutes with it. In fact, I think that one can omit the not-so-good-sometimes directing when considering the film as a whole. The story develops very smoothly, having some unexpected (but not out of the blue) turns. I really recommend to watch this film having a novel director/writer, not so well-known actors (with a couple of remarkable exceptions for the Spanish public such as Paredes), but a nice, well-written, script.