27/05/2004
Medem

Emma Suarez in Vacas and La Ardilla Roja.
Vacas was Julio Medem's 1991 strong debut. Wind, women, cows and fate. Humor and horror.
I also truly enjoyed my second screening of Julio Medem's La Ardilla Roja,
his most hilarious by my knowledge, making fun of the main male character, a Spanish rockstar, but not going as far as in Lucia y el Sexo.

The sold out screening -my first- of Lucia y el sexo at the Brussels Filmmuseum -featuring a Medem retrospective- gathered asurprisingly young and giggling audience.
Medems fifth has apparently reached cult status among young women interested in a romantic version of sexual liberation.
And they got get plenty of that, along with some wicked twists of destiny and the omnipresent influence of sea and moon.
The writer in Lucia is not the first artist in a Medem movie -we've seen a painting lunatic grandfather and a suicidal rocksinger before-
but for the first time the artistic creation and its sex drive are central to the story.
Surprisingly, the movie would lend itself well for a comparison with Almodovar's all male drama La mala educacion, starting with the narrative structure.
But Lucia is bursting with women who focus on their -sex- life, fine.
The men on the contrary are portrayed as cowards who are powerless against their own dick, their weakness illustrated with less humor than in La ardilla for example.
So I had trouble going along with the romantic game of the improbable/impossible Medem usually plays with the two protagonists of his movie.
And that is crucial.
Not my favourite, but till I see it again, the most challenging Medem till now.
In February, after making the documentary 'La pelota vasca, la piel contra la piedra', he declared he was returning to fiction.