BELLE EPOQUE

A glossy and sexy comedy sure to be one of Spain's biggest cinematic exports of the year, BELLE EPOQUE is director Fernando Trueba's ironic take on life in rural Spain in 1931. Gorgeously filmed and exuberantly acted by a fine cast, this is the tale of a young army bugler named Fernando who deserts his decimated regiment for the pastoral countryside. In a region where Republicans and Royalists hurl jibes, not grenades, and the area's food-loving Catholic priest plays cards with his ideological foes at the local bordello, Fernando finds a free-thinking refuge in the home of a friendly, liberal-minded old artist and his quartet of lovely and affectionate daughters, visiting for carnival time. Each of the available beauties poses a different tangle of challenges and delights for the young man-and he for them. Unabashedly ribald and equally humane, this sensous and witty tale of passion, politics and a tenuous paradise has won 9 Goya Awards in its native country, and was nominated this year for a Best Foreign Film Academy Award. In Spanish with English Subtitles.