LOVERS

Spain, 1990, 105 minutes, Colour.
Victoria Abril, Jorge Sanz, Maribel Verdu.
Directed by Vicente Aranda.

Lovers is an erotic drama from Spain at the beginning of the '90s. It also has strong political and social comment. It is set in Madrid during the 1950s, the period of Franco's dictatorship and the repression of human freedoms. The focus is on a young man, Paco (played by Jorge Sanz, who was to appear in a number of Spanish films including La Belle Epoque). His life is very ordinary. He has a young fiancee, played by Maribel Verdu (who, over ten years later, was to be the lead in the erotic Mexican drama And Your Mother Too). The star of the film is Victoria Abriel as a widow. She begins an affair with the young man and it turns into an obsession.

The film is both erotic and violent as the impossible love comes towards a melodramatic climax. The performances are strong and carry the film. It is based on a true story.

1.The impact of the film? Based on a true story?

2.The Spanish settings, the city, the countryside, the country town? The variety of workplaces? Homes and apartments? Mansions? The atmosphere of Spain in the '80s? The musical score?

3.The title and its ironies? The relationships between Paco, his landlady and Trini?

4.The film as a portrait of Paco? His age and experience? Background, family, his relationship with his mother? His experience in the army and leaving the army? The relationship with Trini and her expectations of marriage? His response to her more puritanical way of behaviour? Not responding to sexual advances? His looking for work? His searching for a flat? His meeting the landlady and her taking a shine to him? Going to his job, leaving the job? At home, the meal, his allowing himself to be seduced by the landlady? The intensity of their relationship? The effect on each? His visits to the household and to Trini? Her suspicions? The landlady and dressing him up, the clothes and the suit? The gang that she belonged to and the situation, his becoming entrapped? His continued lies? The meeting in the cafe? The landlady and her need for money? His plan? Trini and her coming to the flat, her allowing herself to be seduced, hoping to hold Paco? His story of the plan for the restaurant and her believing it? Her giving him the money? The meeting with Trini and her death in the snow? Paco's going to the train, meeting the landlady, his arrest? A callow young man without values? Naive, selfish?

5.The landlady and her background, allowing Paco to come in, her routines, expectations of him? The seduction? The sexual relationship? The gang, her need for money? Playing on his obsession with her? The jealousy with Trini and Trini's visit? Her revelation that she had murdered her husband? Her needs, using Paco, conniving with the murder of Trini? Meeting Paco at the station, the seeming happy ending - and the arrest?

6.The contrast with Trini, the good young woman, working as a maid, her expectations of Paco and marriage? Her serving the military man and his wife? The wife giving advice - especially about infidelity? Her decision to go to Paco's flat, give herself to him? Her suspicions of the landlady, her jealousy? Her being hurt? Listening to his plan, the hopes for the restaurant, getting her savings together, giving them to Paco, sitting, disillusioned, in the snow and dying?

7.The General and his wife, the wife and her advice to Trini? The General's past behaviour? A mirror-image of what might have happened with Paco and Trini?

8.Paco and his visits to his family, his mother?

9.The film as a parable about relationships, sexuality, people using one another, greed? Its amoral tone? The moral made at the end with the arrest of Paco and the landlady?