Based on the novel by Joaquín Leguina, veteran director Pilar Miró's film, Tu nombre envena mis suenos (Your name poisons my dreams) is a murder mystery where neither murder nor mystery are that important
'When I began to work on Tu nombre…,' explains Miró, 'It was the story of a woman who kills with a vengeance. The film tells two stories that deal with love, frustrated love, and centres on the two people who lived that love unsuccessfully. The best stories always have losers as protagonists. In this one, there are no winners. The two people involved live a passionate love story, and that's the best way to define the film: they love passionately and lose.'
Built like a puzzle, and shot with the utmost care, the film cuts through two decades (the Spanish Civil War and the post-War era) and begins with a meeting between mathematics professor Angel Barciela (Carmelo Gómez) and police officer Francisco Valduque (Angel de Andrés). Both men are on their way to attend the funeral of a man named Buendía (Miguel Palenzuela), whom they had interrogated back in 1942 when they were both policemen working together on an alleged suicide.
The film then goes back to that year when Barciela and Valduque started on the case. It is then that Barciela meets a woman, Julia Buendia (Emma Suárez), with whom he falls madly in love. And she takes him and us back a few years more to when she was an adolescent during the war. And he we follow her through her recollections of that time, through her relationship with a young communist (Toni Cantó) and through her connection to a fascist group called the 'Fifth Column'. In the meantime, we witness her passionate love story with Barciela and the murders that go on around them.
Both Barciela and Julia are the focal points of the story, and throughout the film we are made to sympathise with her and empathise with him. Willingly, we succumb. Gómez and Suárez are brilliant in their roles.
'Julia is one of the juiciest roles I've ever played…' says Suárez. 'She's taught me many things, but, above all, she's taught me that one has to keep struggling in life and that the choices one makes at some point in time can be wrong ones and that they can and do influence one's life forever.'
As for Gómez, he 'hopes that the film will serve its viewers to learn something about the past, in which hate took us straight to a war among ourselves.'
Tu nombre envenena might not be a film for people who don't like the thrill being taken out of the thriller. But it is a masterpiece. Noble. Intelligent. Brave. And a must for those who enjoy being given the necessary time and space to step back for a while in order to gain a better understanding of the human spirit in any troubled age. Kris Rendon
Prod co: CPA, Sogetel
Prod: Rafael Díaz-Salgado, José Luis Olazoila, Fernando de Garcillán
Dir: Pilar Miró
Scr: Pilar Miró, Ricardo Franco, based on the novel by Joaquín Leguina
Foto (Ph): Javier Aguirresarobe
Art dir (Prod des): Gil Parrondo
Mus: José Nieto
Mont (Ed): María Elena Saiz de Rosas
Ints (Cast): Emma Suárez, Carmelo Gómez, Angel de Andrés López, Anabel Alonso, Toni Cantó
Ventas (sales): Sogepaq International
Programación (Screening): 19.30, 21 September, Principe, 2; 09.00, 22 September, Victoria Eugenia
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